Lost Bitcoin

[mforno]

back in 2010 I bought some bitcoin.
I wrote down on a piece of paper characters similiar to the one below.

Has anyone seen a 15 character key/phrase of the likes of:

JPGZE4MATACPN8L

Could this be part of blockchain dot com wallet or the bitcoin core wallet ?

Any help is appreciated

[bloodchow]

money is locked if you lost yr privkey


backup 10 times at 10 different place securely when hodling

[mu_enrico]

Perhaps it's a brainwallet passphrase, try here

https://www.bitaddress.org/ >> brain wallet
https://walletgenerator.net/ >> brain wallet

[OmegaStarScream]

This looks like a Google Authenticator secret key which helps recovering your account in case you lost your phone.

I'm not sure any exchange from 2010 (If there were any) still exists today. Blockchain.info didn't come until 2011 so It's not it.

[muhammedb]

back in 2010 I bought some bitcoin.
I wrote down on a piece of paper characters similiar to the one below.

Has anyone seen a 15 character key/phrase of the likes of:

JPGZE4MATACPN8L

Could this be part of blockchain dot com wallet or the bitcoin core wallet ?

Any help is appreciated

it really get frustrated when you misplace your private key because all your investment will be lost, i think this is not private key rather it like phase password from either authentificator or any other means to recover password. just calm down and think well you will be able to fix the right password or phase out.

[Abdussamad]

This looks like a Google Authenticator secret key which helps recovering your account in case you lost your phone.

I'm not sure any exchange from 2010 (If there were any) still exists today. Blockchain.info didn't come until 2011 so It's not it.

Base32 character set doesn't include 8: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3548#section-5

[bob123]

I'd agree with OmegaStarScream here. This looks like a Google 2FA code.
They use 'secret codes' with capital letters + numbers and a length of less than 16 symbols.

This definitely isn't a private key. You need way more characters to encode a private key (256 bit).


Do you remember anything at all regarding the wallet you have used ?
Did you use an online wallet ? Or did you maybe use a desktop wallet ?

This GA code could be from anywhere.

[Abdussamad]

It's not a GA code because those are represented in base32 and according to the RFC the base32 alphabet does not include the character 8.

[LoyceV]

It's not a GA code because those are represented in base32 and according to the RFC the base32 alphabet does not include the character 8.

OP made up an example to show what it looks like. It could very well be his original code is 15 characters base32, but he didn't know that when he typed "JPGZE4MATACPN8L" as an example.

[Abdussamad]

It's not a GA code because those are represented in base32 and according to the RFC the base32 alphabet does not include the character 8.

OP made up an example to show what it looks like. It could very well be his original code is 15 characters base32, but he didn't know that when he typed "JPGZE4MATACPN8L" as an example.

lol yeah that's possible. OP can you compare the characters with the character set here: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3548#section-5

[mforno]

It's not a GA code because those are represented in base32 and according to the RFC the base32 alphabet does not include the character 8.

OP made up an example to show what it looks like. It could very well be his original code is 15 characters base32, but he didn't know that when he typed "JPGZE4MATACPN8L" as an example.

You are both absolutely right.
The character 8 is not actually in the original one.
The 8 is actually a 9 in the real one

So what are your guys thoughts on it? could quite possibly well be an authenticator key?

Im actually looking for bitcoin for a friend on his laptop.

I'd agree with OmegaStarScream here. This looks like a Google 2FA code.
They use 'secret codes' with capital letters + numbers and a length of less than 16 symbols.

This definitely isn't a private key. You need way more characters to encode a private key (256 bit).


Do you remember anything at all regarding the wallet you have used ?
Did you use an online wallet ? Or did you maybe use a desktop wallet ?

This GA code could be from anywhere.

I have the wallet.dat file here but when downloaded  the Bitcoin Core wallet and synched it and then overwrote the wallet.dat with the new one it came up with a balance of 0. Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

When I go into the debug text file in the bitcoin folder here is some of the info I get:

2018-05-12 02:14:32 UpdateTip: new best=00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f411475428afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048 height=1 version=0x00000001 log2_work=33.000022 tx=2 date='2009-01-09 02:54:25' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(1txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:32 UpdateTip: new best=000000006a625f06636b8bb6ac7b960a8d03705d1ace08b1a19da3fdcc99ddbd height=2 version=0x00000001 log2_work=33.584985 tx=3 date='2009-01-09 02:55:44' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(2txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:32 UpdateTip: new best=0000000082b5015589a3fdf2d4baff403e6f0be035a5d9742c1cae6295464449 height=3 version=0x00000001 log2_work=34.000022 tx=4 date='2009-01-09 03:02:53' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(3txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:32 UpdateTip: new best=000000004ebadb55ee9096c9a2f8880e09da59c0d68b1c228da88e48844a1485 height=4 version=0x00000001 log2_work=34.32195 tx=5 date='2009-01-09 03:16:28' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(4txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:32 UpdateTip: new best=000000009b7262315dbf071787ad3656097b892abffd1f95a1a022f896f533fc height=5 version=0x00000001 log2_work=34.584985 tx=6 date='2009-01-09 03:23:48' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(5txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:33 UpdateTip: new best=000000003031a0e73735690c5a1ff2a4be82553b2a12b776fbd3a215dc8f778d height=6 version=0x00000001 log2_work=34.807377 tx=7 date='2009-01-09 03:29:49' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(6txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:33 UpdateTip: new best=0000000071966c2b1d065fd446b1e485b2c9d9594acd2007ccbd5441cfc89444 height=7 version=0x00000001 log2_work=35.000022 tx=8 date='2009-01-09 03:39:29' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(7txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:33 UpdateTip: new best=00000000408c48f847aa786c2268fc3e6ec2af68e8468a34a28c61b7f1de0dc6 height=8 version=0x00000001 log2_work=35.169947 tx=9 date='2009-01-09 03:45:43' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(8txo)
2018-05-12 02:14:33 UpdateTip: new best=000000008d9dc510f23c2657fc4f67bea30078cc05a90eb89e84cc475c080805 height=9 version=0x00000001 log2_work=35.32195 tx=10 date='2009-01-09 03:54:39' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(9txo)


When it says in the last date 2009-01-09 what does that mean?

[bob123]

I have the wallet.dat file here but when downloaded  the Bitcoin Core wallet and synched it and then overwrote the wallet.dat with the new one it came up with a balance of 0. Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

Core does never overwrite a wallet.dat if it already exists in the directory.
Chances are high that this is your old wallet (if it was in the correct directory).

Core does only create a new wallet.dat if there is no in the data directory (standard directory?)

Even if you have deleted the file, under some circumstances you would be able to recover it using some recovery tool and a linux distro.


But, the phrase from your OP is not related to core in any way (maybe your wallet password?).

[TheArchaeologist]

Code:

2018-05-12 02:14:33 UpdateTip: new best=000000008d9dc510f23c2657fc4f67bea30078cc05a90eb89e84cc475c080805 height=9 version=0x00000001 log2_work=35.32195 tx=10 date='2009-01-09 03:54:39' progress=0.000000 cache=0.0MiB(9txo)

When it says in the last date 2009-01-09 what does that mean?

When syncing the blockchain you will start at the very first block  (the genesis block) and work towards the last known block sequentially. You're debug.log is just referring to a block it received from 2009. The progress indicator being at 0.000000 also gives you a hint this is from very early on in the syncing progress. When you are fully synced the progress indicator should be at 1.000000

In other words: this will happen to anyone fully syncing from scratch. This has nothing to do with your wallet and the possibility it could contain coins from very early on.

[mforno]

I have the wallet.dat file here but when downloaded  the Bitcoin Core wallet and synched it and then overwrote the wallet.dat with the new one it came up with a balance of 0. Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

Core does never overwrite a wallet.dat if it already exists in the directory.
Chances are high that this is your old wallet (if it was in the correct directory).

Core does only create a new wallet.dat if there is no in the data directory (standard directory?)

Even if you have deleted the file, under some circumstances you would be able to recover it using some recovery tool and a linux distro.


But, the phrase from your OP is not related to core in any way (maybe your wallet password?).

I have a software program called Recova, its a windows program. I managed to see that there were some files deleted in the recycle bin relating to bitcoin dating back to 2013, and they were called:
blk00013.dat
000346.ldb
rev00029.dat

any reason why it might show these in the recycle bin recovery program?

Also, why should I use Linux distribution to recover files instead of the Recuva program? Is it better? Will it find a lot more files?

Thanks for any help,

M

[Abdussamad]

blk files are created by core

9 is not a base32 character either so it does not look like a GA shared secret.

[bob123]

@bob123 it would be great if you tell the name of the linux distro or recovery tools.

That's not really distro specific (even tho there are some available which have the basic tools for recovery, e.g. knoppix)
The majority of recovery tools are available for all most common distros (e.g. debian based).

You'll have a higher success rate on linux since there are way more (and better) free tools available for linux than for windows.


The chosen tool itself depends on the situation. An example would be:
For imaging / cloning the drive: dd
To correct partition level issues: Testdisk
To recover specific files based on ending (ignores file system): Photorec (is part of Testdisk)

[mforno]

@bob123 it would be great if you tell the name of the linux distro or recovery tools.

That's not really distro specific (even tho there are some available which have the basic tools for recovery, e.g. knoppix)
The majority of recovery tools are available for all most common distros (e.g. debian based).

You'll have a higher success rate on linux since there are way more (and better) free tools available for linux than for windows.


The chosen tool itself depends on the situation. An example would be:
For imaging / cloning the drive: dd
To correct partition level issues: Testdisk
To recover specific files based on ending (ignores file system): Photorec (is part of Testdisk)

Ok,

Thanks for all the info.

Im a newbie to Linux.
As there is Windows 7 already installed on the device how do I go about installing Linux?

Is there a small portable version I can download without having to lose windows?

[Rath_]

Is there a small portable version I can download without having to lose windows?

Yes, there is. Some distros have a LiveCD feature which allows you to test the operating system without making any changes to your PC. Create a bootable USB with the ISO you choose and boot from it.

[BitMaxz]

Is there a small portable version I can download without having to lose windows?

Yes, there is. Some distros have a LiveCD feature which allows you to test the operating system without making any changes to your PC. Create a bootable USB with the ISO you choose and boot from it.

Another way is to download the VirtualBox and install then if you have Linux CD or ISO you can start installing it with VirtualBox but if you don't have any Linux OS you can download it from here http://getintopc.com and you can dowload the VirtualBox from here https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

[bob123]

Another way is to download the VirtualBox and install then if you have Linux CD or ISO you can start installing it with VirtualBox

This might be possible, but is definitely NOT the recommended way.

You don't want to have the VM and the Host-OS sitting between you and your hard drive. That just increases the risk of anything going wrong.

The most convenient (and probably also best) approach would be to use a live system (bootable from USB).
This way you'll be able to directly mount the drive and copy/work on it, without multiple abstraction layers in between.


There are multiple guides available on the internet which show how to create a bootable linux USB stick.