Diving into an old BTC wallet from ~2014 and found a nice surprise - what next?

[walletdatdiver]

To your other point: the wallet is showing an available balance of zero in the background, while resyncing.

And is it showing any transaction history?

If you can see all the "ins" and "outs", you might be able to figure out where all the BTC went... and when.

Belated response: yes, the resynced wallet eventually caught up with my transaction history, and thus reported zero balance. Although interestingly when I loaded the next most recent wallet backup (created a month after the original file mentioned in OP) it began showing an "available balance" exactly the same as the ~0.5BTC sum mentioned earlier in this thread.

Any attempts to perform a test transaction to move a fraction of that amount show the same "0/unconfirmed, not in memory pool" message that I reported earlier in this thread, with the earlier wallet.dat file. I've run -dumpwallet and swept the keys into a new Electrum wallet, per the process mentioned earlier in this thread, which yielded nothing - just ~140 lines resulting in "no inputs found" in Electrum. (From reading further forum posts around that Electrum message just now, I have not yet tried the -listunspent command in that wallet, so I'll try it once that wallet finished rescanning.)

With the synched blockchain on my HDD, I've also been using Bitcoin Core to run through various other old wallet.dat files backed up more recently than the original file, and they're all empty too. Looks like I'm coming to the end of my historical treasure hunt... although one file (created in late 2015) is showing a message when I try to load it which ends: "...wallet is corrupt. Try using the wallet tool bitcoin-wallet to salvage or restoring a backup."

I've done a little research around that error message and will soon try a few things to investigate further. I doubt it'll result in any further BTC discoveries, but of course I want to be thorough here. Feel free to make any suggestions re that particular error message if you're familiar with it. And thanks for taking the time to read and reply to this random thread.

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[HCP]

Any attempts to perform a test transaction to move a fraction of that amount show the same "0/unconfirmed, not in memory pool" message that I reported earlier in this thread, with the earlier wallet.dat file.

So with a fully synced Bitcoin Core... and a fully rescanned wallet, it shows a balance but then says "0/unconfirmed, not in memory pool" if you try and send a transaction? Or are you getting that if you just open the wallet.dat file and try to send coins?

If the latter, then it's likely because the wallet itself isn't "synced"... so you're attempting to send coins which no longer exist... the transaction will be rejected and you'll end up with the "not in memory pool" type error.

I've run -dumpwallet and swept the keys into a new Electrum wallet, per the process mentioned earlier in this thread, which yielded nothing - just ~140 lines resulting in "no inputs found" in Electrum. (From reading further forum posts around that Electrum message just now, I have not yet tried the -listunspent command in that wallet, so I'll try it once that wallet finished rescanning.)

That would tend to indicate that the wallet is actually empty... and the balances you're seeing when you first open were accurate when the wallet was last used, but the coins have since been spent and therefore, the wallet balance is actually zero.

although one file (created in late 2015) is showing a message when I try to load it which ends: "...wallet is corrupt. Try using the wallet tool bitcoin-wallet to salvage or restoring a backup."

Generally, that doesn't end well PyWallet might be able to recover something

The old salvagewallet option has been removed from the "core" Bitcoin Core app... so you can't use the -salvagewallet commandline argument with bitcoind or bitcoin-qt anymore... instead, it looks like there is a "bitcoin-wallet" (or "bitcoin-wallet.exe") that is now bundled with Bitcoin Core that you can use and the command is now salvage:

Code:

Bitcoin Core bitcoin-wallet version v0.21.0

bitcoin-wallet is an offline tool for creating and interacting with Bitcoin Core wallet files.
By default bitcoin-wallet will act on wallets in the default mainnet wallet directory in the datadir.
To change the target wallet, use the -datadir, -wallet and -testnet/-regtest arguments.

Usage:
  bitcoin-wallet [options] <command>

Options:

  -?
       Print this help message and exit

  -datadir=<dir>
       Specify data directory

  -wallet=<wallet-name>
       Specify wallet name

Debugging/Testing options:

  -debug=<category>
       Output debugging information (default: 0).

  -printtoconsole
       Send trace/debug info to console (default: 1 when no -debug is true, 0
       otherwise).

Chain selection options:

  -chain=<chain>
       Use the chain <chain> (default: main). Allowed values: main, test,
       signet, regtest

  -signet
       Use the signet chain. Equivalent to -chain=signet. Note that the network
       is defined by the -signetchallenge parameter

  -signetchallenge
       Blocks must satisfy the given script to be considered valid (only for
       signet networks; defaults to the global default signet test
       network challenge)

  -signetseednode
       Specify a seed node for the signet network, in the hostname[:port]
       format, e.g. sig.net:1234 (may be used multiple times to specify
       multiple seed nodes; defaults to the global default signet test
       network seed node(s))

  -testnet
       Use the test chain. Equivalent to -chain=test.

Commands:

  create
       Create new wallet file

  info
       Get wallet info

  salvage
       Attempt to recover private keys from a corrupt wallet. Warning:
       'salvage' is experimental.

[walletdatdiver]

although one file (created in late 2015) is showing a message when I try to load it which ends: "...wallet is corrupt. Try using the wallet tool bitcoin-wallet to salvage or restoring a backup."

Generally, that doesn't end well PyWallet might be able to recover something

Yeah. I started looking into how to use PyWallet, but as a total Python noob who hasn't coded in any language in quite a few years, I soon became overwhelmed and discouraged.

Is there a straightforward guide to using PyWallet? All the stuff I unearthed online is aimed at a much more Python-savvy audience than someone like me... I would like to invest the time in understanding it, but the nature of my life at present is that I only have an hour here and there, and very few chances to sit at the PC for an extended period and really put my mind to learning something new. Sad, maybe, but that's my reality for now.

The old salvagewallet option has been removed from the "core" Bitcoin Core app... so you can't use the -salvagewallet commandline argument with bitcoind or bitcoin-qt anymore... instead, it looks like there is a "bitcoin-wallet" (or "bitcoin-wallet.exe") that is now bundled with Bitcoin Core that you can use and the command is now salvage:

This is another dumb question perhaps, but how do I actually use bitcoin-wallet? It doesn't appear as a command line option in Bitcoin Core itself. Is there a non-GUI way I should be accessing it? I understand it's an offline tool, which I take to mean it doesn't need to sync the blockchain, but I'm clueless as to where to type those commands to interact with it. Any help appreciated.

[NotATether]

Yeah. I started looking into how to use PyWallet, but as a total Python noob who hasn't coded in any language in quite a few years, I soon became overwhelmed and discouraged.

Is there a straightforward guide to using PyWallet? All the stuff I unearthed online is aimed at a much more Python-savvy audience than someone like me... I would like to invest the time in understanding it, but the nature of my life at present is that I only have an hour here and there, and very few chances to sit at the PC for an extended period and really put my mind to learning something new. Sad, maybe, but that's my reality for now.

You probably already know how to install Python 2 (this is important as Python 3 support is experimental) and clone pywallet from Github, so assuming you already done that, it doesn't need any programming knowledge to run.

Enter the pywallet folder first within a terminal, and then run python pywallet.py  --recover --recov_device=PATH/TO/wallet.dat --recov_size=100kB --recov_outputdir=/folder/to/place/recovered/wallet.dat. What this does is that it reads the wallet file specified by --recov_device, tries to reconstruct the wallet from the first --recov_size bytes and places the recovered wallet file in the --recov_outputdir folder using the name recovered_wallet_CURRENTTIMESTAMP.dat (CURRENTTIMESTAMP is replaced by the the time right now represented as an integer).

Note: the "B" in the size has to exactly be uppercase, and the "k" lowercase to represent kilobytes, or it won't be recognized and will throw an error.)

It will prompt you to set a password for the newly recovered wallet.dat.

Generally, wallet.dat files are only a few dozen kilobytes large so using 100kB size ensures that you can recover wallets with large numbers of private keys inside.

This is another dumb question perhaps, but how do I actually use bitcoin-wallet? It doesn't appear as a command line option in Bitcoin Core itself. Is there a non-GUI way I should be accessing it? I understand it's an offline tool, which I take to mean it doesn't need to sync the blockchain, but I'm clueless as to where to type those commands to interact with it. Any help appreciated.

btcoin-wallet is also very easy to use, you just pass the name of one of your wallet files in your datadir using -wallet=WALLET_NAME, and then there's a few commands you can type after -wallet and the other options that are listed in its help text:

 create                          
       Create new wallet file                                                                        
  info  
       Get wallet info            
  salvage                        
       Attempt to recover private keys from a corrupt wallet. Warning: 'salvage' is experimental. .

So the full command to run is bitcoin-wallet -wallet=WALLET_NAME salvage.

edit: typo

[HCP]

This is another dumb question perhaps, but how do I actually use bitcoin-wallet? It doesn't appear as a command line option in Bitcoin Core itself. Is there a non-GUI way I should be accessing it? I understand it's an offline tool, which I take to mean it doesn't need to sync the blockchain, but I'm clueless as to where to type those commands to interact with it. Any help appreciated.

You'll find the "bitcoin-wallet.exe" in the same location as "bitcoin-cli.exe" and "bitcoind.exe" etc... on Windows, if you have used the Bitcoin Core Windows installer, that should be:

Code:

C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\daemon

So, using "Command Prompt" (press the Windows key, then type: "cmd"  You should see "Command Prompt", then press enter)... you should be able to enter the follow commands, one at a time:

Code:

cd C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\daemon

Code:

bitcoin-wallet -wallet=WALLET_NAME salvage

Couple of notes:
- Make a backup (or three) of your wallet file BEFORE you attempt to use the salvage... it makes permanent changes to the wallet file!
- If your bitcoin datadir is NOT the default location (ie. you set a custom location when running Bitcoin Core for the first time), you'll need to use the -datadir option as well (you can find the datadir in Bitcoin Core GUI under "Window -> Information")

[walletdatdiver]

You guys are amazingly helpful, thank you. I'll update back in here when I can. Cheers

[walletdatdiver]

Update: I've exhausted all possible avenues for any further BTC recovery, of that I'm certain

On LoyceV's advice, I did spend time in recent days claiming my various BTC forks, which means I now own ~0.5 in each of BCH, BSV, BTG and BCHA

For anyone who happens to discover this thread in future, please do follow Loyce's guide here - the original post is a little outdated in terms of which currencies are worth pursuing, but much of it still holds up. If you can tolerate a few hours of tinking with various wallets, it might be well worth your time: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2836875.0