Are they lost? Crashed phone

[3550Happiness]

Gentlemen

To start out, I am fully aware that this situation is a result of being an idiot. But when that is said, I have quite an interest in mitigation the situation if in any way possible.

A friend (true story) of mine had an amount of BTC´s in he´s Bitcoin wallet (Bitcoin wallet by Andreas Schildbach)

He´s Samsung tablet, crashed, and he had to reimage it. After reimiaging it, he opened Google Play from he´s pc (for doing an installation of the wallet), where it stated that it was allready installed, he just needed to confirm which device he was utilizing, and afterwards, it appeard again on the tablet. Anyway, obviously, the App have now created a new BTC address and it dosent seem to be possible to type in the old one (which he still have)


According to everything i can find, he´s BTC´s seems to be lost.

And no, he has no backup of the (Galaxy) tablet, but is in presence of he´s old BTC address.

But what he do have, is an older Ipad, and a backup of this, where he used to have the same app installed.

Any suggestions at all?

All (relevant) input is highly appriciated

[manoamano]

If he absolutely no backup and no access to the private key, there is no way he can get his btc back or spend them.
It will make everyone else a little bit richer.

[bitcoin44me]

Yes they are lost. You always need a backup. What is the btc address?

[3550Happiness]

If he absolutely no backup and no access to the private key, there is no way he can get his btc back or spend them.
It will make everyone else a little bit richer.

Unfortunately that was my conclusion as well. And since he had no backup of the Tablet, have reinstalled it, and the app, I wouldn't put my hopes up on finding the data on the tablet.

The only fragment of hope I had, was based on the fact that he used to have he´s BTC wallet on the Ipad, and a backup of the Ipad , and in this case, i´m pretty sure there havent been any changes to he´s account since he had the ipad. So the the thought of being able to utilize that for something crossed my mind

[bitcoin44me]

No, there is no hope sorry

[3550Happiness]

No, there is no hope sorry

Not a lot to add here i guess. What do you need the address for? (-;

Thanks a lot for the quick answer. Tough luck

[bitcoin44me]

I just wanted to see how many btc where there.
But there is nothing you can do with only the address

[pat1900]

and he had to reimage it.

Depending on the method of reimaging, the relevant data may still be there. Try looking for this file:
/data/data/de.schildbach.wallet/key-backup-base58

See http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/180po2/recovering_wallet_and_thus_btc_from_cellphone_data/

of he´s old BTC address

Whatever you do, make sure you know the difference between private keys and public keys (addresses), and what they look like.

[nahtnam]

If the app was uninstalled then its gone Plug the phone/tablet into your computer, and search for "bitcoin wallet". If you are lucky, there might be a few files that are left over and they might contain the private keys!

[Anon136]

actually it is technically possible to get the bitcoins back, by techinically i mean like the nsa could probably do it. this video will explain more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SSSMi4X_mA=t5m19s

if the bitcoins are worth significantly more than the hard drive what you might consider is replacing the hard drive and putting that one away somwhere safe for 10 years and if bitcoins are worth 10,000 dollars each than it might be worth your trouble to recover the data at some point in the future.

[btcton]

and he had to reimage it.

Depending on the method of reimaging, the relevant data may still be there. Try looking for this file:
/data/data/de.schildbach.wallet/key-backup-base58

See http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/180po2/recovering_wallet_and_thus_btc_from_cellphone_data/

Yeah, this would be your one and only hope

[coqui33]

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition No. 302

[MAbtc]

It might not be worth what it would cost to do that sort of data recovery, if it's even possible. Sorry to hear about this.