[overview] Recover Bitcoin from any old storage format

[pooya87]

What if I store my privkeys and all these wallets over CLOUD services?

cloud services can never be an option and here is the problem, when you store your private keys on a cloud server you need to encrypt it first. and we are talking about a strong encryption which means you now have to create a backup of that strong (long and random with symbols,...) password so we are back at square one of you looking for a way to store something!

Late response... not that I'm endorsing the idea of uploading client-side encrypted files to cloud services (as it's still risking centralized server usage), but regarding the long password to remember. Personally I find a 20+ character (mixed letters, numbers, symbols, caps) password more than sufficient, which takes usually a month to type-train to gain muscle memory, and can then otherwise be used as a shard stored (or re-sharded) elsewhere to store as a backup. Dividing a password into three/four parts, stored with different people in different countries, is a pretty reliable mechanism to rely on given memory loss or otherwise. Just make sure the different people don't know each other is a good start  Or alternatively don't provide them access to a backup file, so a password combined together wouldn't amount to anything on it's own. Hence sharding.

Then get creative and engrave the sharded password in three trees of different forests, bury some backups in different locations, just cos you can 

you go through all that trouble and in a couple of years go through all that trouble again to recover the password just to realize that your cloud account is not longer accessible whether because the account was disabled or hacked or just simply wiped because the service provider decided to do so.
now you have a password but nothing to decrypt

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[Coding Enthusiast]

By request I've created a new branch in FinderOuter that could be used to recover Tron private keys. They are in hexadecimal and use SHA3 to hash the public key.
https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/tree/Tron

I have not yet decided whether I should start adding altcoins to FinderOuter which is why this won't be among FinderOuter's regular options and the branch has to be built by cloning the repository.
What do you think, is there any demand for it?

[LoyceV]

I have not yet decided whether I should start adding altcoins to FinderOuter ~
What do you think, is there any demand for it?

I wouldn't start adding random altcoins, there are way too many of those. But if there's any demand for a certain coin recovery, don't let me stop you

[Coding Enthusiast]

I wouldn't start adding random altcoins, there are way too many of those. But if there's any demand for a certain coin recovery, don't let me stop you

The biggest challenge is the lack of documentation and I can't go dig around in their code trying to figure things out. Otherwise I've written my code in a very scalable way that adding an altcoin in most cases is trivial.

[Hoppy09]

I'm after some assistance in checking to see if I mined some BTC back in 2009/10.  I had Bitcoin-QT on my PC in with an active wallet so I'm hoping that mining was not optional back then.  I have found the wallet.dat file, used the GitHub Wallet-Key-Tool to extract the Keys and then imported all 101 addresses into a Blockchain wallet with all having a 0 BTC balance.  The strange thing is that within the Bitcoin folder, I have Block folders with transaction numbers and full transaction details and some of the addresses still contain mined BTC.  Why do I have these transaction details if it wasn't my computer or wallet that mined?

Thanks

[LoyceV]

I have found the wallet.dat file, used the GitHub Wallet-Key-Tool to extract the Keys and then imported all 101 addresses into a Blockchain wallet with all having a 0 BTC balance.

I don't know that tool, so I can only hope you took precautions (such as running it on an air-gapped offline PC). Why didn't you just install Bitcoin Core after making a few backups of your wallet.dat? Or even better: install Bitcoin Core first, let it sync the first few years (that's fast), then add your old wallet.dat after you take the PC offline to prevent any malware attack.
I also hope you didn't import the private keys but only the addresses into an online wallet. If you mined a block back in the days, each block would make you a millionaire now, so you're risking if you expose private keys to a hot wallet.

The strange thing is that within the Bitcoin folder, I have Block folders with transaction numbers and full transaction details and some of the addresses still contain mined BTC.  Why do I have these transaction details if it wasn't my computer or wallet that mined?

I wasn't using Bitcoin around that time so I don't know what files Bitcoin-qt used to write. I've never heard of Bitcoin-qt by itself storing keys anywhere else than in wallet.dat.

[Hoppy09]

I believe Bitcoin-QT became Bitcoin Core around 5-6 years ago???  I'm happy I have taken the correct precautions but was trying to avoid a full Bitcoin Core download and sync as I don't have enough room on my laptop to sync the blockchain.  I'm not sure if I need to sync the whole lot as these would have been mined very early on.  I'm also having trouble installing Bitcoin Core on my laptop for some reason?

[ranochigo]

I'm happy I have taken the correct precautions but was trying to avoid a full Bitcoin Core download and sync as I don't have enough room on my laptop to sync the blockchain.  I'm not sure if I need to sync the whole lot as these would have been mined very early on.  I'm also having trouble installing Bitcoin Core on my laptop for some reason?

Yes, but you can prune it to save the storage space, though you'll still take some time to synchronize. If you are absolutely sure you don't have any transactions after a certain timeframe, you can wait until Bitcoin Core synchronizes until that period of time and determine which addresses have Bitcoins. You can dumpwallet and import the addresses into a SPV wallet like Electrum.

What errors are you having?

[LoyceV]

I'm not sure if I need to sync the whole lot as these would have been mined very early on.

Just syncing up to 2010 is enough to see all changes made before that year. If funds show up, you can check the address on Blockchair.com or using a list of all funded Bitcoin addresses to get the current value.

[bob123]

I'm happy I have taken the correct precautions but was trying to avoid a full Bitcoin Core download and sync as I don't have enough room on my laptop to sync the blockchain. 

You can use pruning which then only keeps the last few blocks to maintain a maximum storage capacity of X MB (free to choose; minimum 500 MB iirc).

I'm not sure if I need to sync the whole lot as these would have been mined very early on. 

You only need to sync until the date you are sure that no transaction happened after that one.

I'm also having trouble installing Bitcoin Core on my laptop for some reason?

What exactly is the issue?
A little bit more information including your OS and any error messages you are facing would be helpful.

[Hoppy09]

Error opening file for writing
c\programme files\bitcoin\bitcoin-qt

Click abort to stop the installation

The same error comes up for each file the installation tries to install.  May be my anti virus???

[ranochigo]

Error opening file for writing
c\programme files\bitcoin\bitcoin-qt

Click abort to stop the installation

The same error comes up for each file the installation tries to install.  May be my anti virus???

It usually happens when the program is still running and thus it cannot be replaced. Is the instance still running? Can you try rebooting your computer?

[Hoppy09]

In my original Bitcoin folder, I have a folder called 'Chainstate' and contains numbered files (microsoft serialised certificate store).  When I enter the number into the blockchain explorer it appears that there are block numbers containing transaction details.  Why do I have these files and are they related to BTC that I may have mined?

I also have a 'Blocks' folder with BLK and REV .dat files??

[Hoppy09]

Error opening file for writing
c\programme files\bitcoin\bitcoin-qt

Click abort to stop the installation

The same error comes up for each file the installation tries to install.  May be my anti virus???

It usually happens when the program is still running and thus it cannot be replaced. Is the instance still running? Can you try rebooting your computer?

No luck unfortunately???  Anti-virus maybe???

[LoyceV]

Why do I have these files and are they related to BTC that I may have mined?

"Chainstate" and "blocks" are part of Bitcoin Core, but have nothing to do with your own wallet. The only old file that matters is your wallet.dat.

[Hoppy09]

Why do I have these files and are they related to BTC that I may have mined?

"Chainstate" and "blocks" are part of Bitcoin Core, but have nothing to do with your own wallet. The only old file that matters is your wallet.dat.

That's what I thought but was hoping wasn't the case.  Don't think I have any hidden treasure but I'll now try and get Bitcoin Core installed and check this way to be sure....

Thanks for your help.

[bob123]

Error opening file for writing
c\programme files\bitcoin\bitcoin-qt

If you don't have any other instance running, what version of bitcoin core do you have installed ?
And where did you download it from ?

[LoyceV]

Bump with a new storage format added:

Blockstack
If you have Bitcoin in a CLI Blockstack node, read this topic.

[NotATether]

Bump with a new storage format added:

Blockstack
If you have Bitcoin in a CLI Blockstack node, read this topic.

I think you should redirect people to blockstack_recover: Extract private keys from blockstack-client wallets instead of that topic.

[LoyceV]

I think you should redirect people to blockstack_recover: Extract private keys from blockstack-client wallets instead of that topic.

I've added the link, I'll leave it to the reader to choose read everything.

If you quote the entire OP, your entry will be deleted.

... would it be possible to put all above into a windows 10 executable which performs a low level scan of the local drive/s, then displays possible files with a % of certainty based on the details found above? while you are building it, perhaps you can also scan for privkeys and anything else bitcoin useful, add in a checkit live switch on the blockchain for possible value. I'll buy a copy and be the first customer!

I've removed your post (because of the large quote), but answer it anyway: no, that's not possible.