2009 wallet recovery

[peterh]

Bit of a long shot but worth a go...

I remember reading about bitcoin when it first launched on BBC news (I think this was 2009), downloading the software and mining some coins using what I think was the original wallet software.

I did this for a few weeks and remember finding some rewards... how many I'm really not sure, I think they were only worth about $15 in total at the time.

Unfortunately the 500gb hard drive in this computer has since been re-formatted and is now > 80% full of .mkv movies.

I've tried the recovery instruction in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=22697.0 basically searching with a hex editor for the string "01 03 6B 65 79 41 04" and found nothing.

This seems to be for a 2011 wallet - I was just wanting to confirm that the very first client software would have the same instructions and if I can't find this string on the hard drive the coins have definitely gone?

Thanks!

[1713254377]

1713254377

[1713254377]

1713254377

[1713254377]

1713254377

[Abdussamad]

You can try giving it to data recovery companies. They are not cheap though.

edit: And do stop using the drive immediately. The more you use it the harder it gets to recover anything from it. By stop using I mean physically disconnecting the SATA/IDE cable.

[peterh]

Any guesstimate at the chance of success a specialist company would have?

Any ball park idea of costs and does anyone know of a trustworthy company? There's a possibility that the wallet could be worth a decent amount of money...

Is the hex code I was searching defiantly for the same for a 2009 as a 2011 wallet?

[Abdussamad]

Any guesstimate at the chance of success a specialist company would have?

Any ball park idea of costs and does anyone know of a trustworthy company? There's a possibility that the wallet could be worth a decent amount of money...

Googled this sometime back. It starts at $300 and goes up from there to thousands of dollars.