six months later and I'm lost

[spoonbender]

I think this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=189628.0  answers my question. Working on it...

[1715585083]

1715585083

[1715585083]

1715585083

[spoonbender]

No luck with using BtToMt as per previous post.

I've copied and pasted the old wallet.dat into the same location on my new computer as I found it on the old computer. Bitcoin Qt does not show my info, and I see no option to import anything (I've saved a 2nd copy on my desktop and have yet another copy on a flash drive - don't want to lose this puppy again!).

I must be missing something, but don't know what it is...

edit
OK. Wait. What I did today, was in my initial recovery attempt, before I knew to look in AppData, I reinstalled Bitcoin Qt. I think I screwed myself with that. That's why the wallet looks empty - because it is. Is there a way to recover the file that was there before I reinstalled Bitcoin Qt?

How bad is my karma if I messed myself up moments before retrieving the file I needed..... 

[sbwfaqo]

newbie

[DrG]

1) Stop using the drive with the wallet.dat file as an OS drive
2) Place said drive into another PC
3) Run a program to find deleted files (I use File Scavenger - worth buying if you're talking about a few BTC)
4) If you are able to find an older version of wallet.dat then you have some hope.  Backup that file onto 2 USB drives
5) Install new Bitcoin-qt client onto a PC and let it run for a minute, just long enough to finish installing and creating a new wallet.dat file
6) Replace that new wallet.dat file with your backup from one of the 2 USB drives (again under App Data)
6) Resync and cross your fingers

[spoonbender]

newbie

Thanks for being gentle. I was thinking more like "dumb a$$".

1) Stop using the drive with the wallet.dat file as an OS drive
2) Place said drive into another PC
3) Run a program to find deleted files (I use File Scavenger - worth buying if you're talking about a few BTC)
4) If you are able to find an older version of wallet.dat then you have some hope.  Backup that file onto 2 USB drives
5) Install new Bitcoin-qt client onto a PC and let it run for a minute, just long enough to finish installing and creating a new wallet.dat file
6) Replace that new wallet.dat file with your backup from one of the 2 USB drives (again under App Data)
6) Resync and cross your fingers

I couldn't put the drive into another PC, but I did run File Scavenger. It was only able to find the same 88kb file (compared to a freshly-installed file size of 80kb) that I already had found and used to replace my Qt wallet, so I didn't buy it to access that file. At this point the only remaining question is why the wallet's file size is 8kb larger than a freshly-installed wallet, but the wallet appears empty - nothing. Not even my original address, which I would think would show up. If anybody has an explanation for that, I'm curious, but I think that bitcoin is gone for good...     Ah, well, live and learn - I don't tend to make the same mistakes twice...

[bitcoinminer11794591]

i nearly lost all my BTC... I installed Multi-bit and then deleted it... I reinstalled it and somehow managed to restore the .dat file. Now i'm definitely going to be careful