Old 2010 bitcoin wallet.dat

[rok95]

Hi

So I have managed to restore my HDD and found old 2010 wallet.dat it shouldn't be encrypted but it wasn't then I deleted it because I forgot that I mined BTC back then.
After 2years I managed to recover my wallet but befor I did that I installed bitcoin core on that same drive and download blockchain on diffrent drive when I look at properties it says creation date 2021 modification date 2010
Is it possible that it may be overwriten because before I manage to recover it I've been able to open it in text file and it was readable wallet.old
I remember when I had a piece of paper that some words were written on there and private key... I threw that paper away because I didn't know at a time it was from bitcoin there were 4 words written on there is it possible that I found encrypted wallet and could I decrypt this wallet with those 4words or back in the day bitcoin used 4word passphrase? or if anyone knows where can I get more information about bitcoin from 2009-2010?

Thank you

[plexasm]

Hi

So I have managed to restore my HDD and found old 2010 wallet.dat it shouldn't be encrypted but it wasn't then I deleted it because I forgot that I mined BTC back then.
After 2years I managed to recover my wallet but befor I did that I installed bitcoin core on that same drive and download blockchain on diffrent drive when I look at properties it says creation date 2021 modification date 2010
Is it possible that it may be overwriten because before I manage to recover it I've been able to open it in text file and it was readable wallet.old
I remember when I had a piece of paper that some words were written on there and private key... I threw that paper away because I didn't know at a time it was from bitcoin there were 4 words written on there is it possible that I found encrypted wallet and could I decrypt this wallet with those 4words or back in the day bitcoin used 4word passphrase? or if anyone knows where can I get more information about bitcoin from 2009-2010?

Thank you

If your wallet.dat isn't encrypted, you don't need any words to access it.

You're saying that Bitcoin Core (new version) created this file "wallet.old" when you attempted to view your wallet?

[HCP]

So I have managed to restore my HDD and found old 2010 wallet.dat it shouldn't be encrypted but it wasn't then I deleted it because I forgot that I mined BTC back then.

So you got an old HDD working... and then deleted your old wallet.dat?

After 2years I managed to recover my wallet but befor I did that I installed bitcoin core on that same drive and download blockchain on diffrent drive when I look at properties it says creation date 2021 modification date 2010

Then you managed to recover the deleted wallet.dat... but before you recovered that deleted file, you had already installed Bitcoin Core and run it?

Is it possible that it may be overwriten because before I manage to recover it I've been able to open it in text file and it was readable wallet.old

I'm a bit confused by what you've done... and what you actually have now... do you have TWO wallet.dat's? one from the recent install where you had the blockchain on the different drive... and the old "recovered" wallet.dat... or you do just have one wallet.dat?

I remember when I had a piece of paper that some words were written on there and private key... I threw that paper away because I didn't know at a time it was from bitcoin there were 4 words written on there is it possible that I found encrypted wallet and could I decrypt this wallet with those 4words or back in the day bitcoin used 4word passphrase?

Possibly either the passphrase for the Bitcoin wallet, but unlikely as encryption was added in September 2012 with version 0.4.0: https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.4.0 and you say your wallet was from 2010... or the 4 words could also have been a "brain wallet" used to generate the private key that was also written on the paper...

In either case, it's relatively moot, as you threw the piece of paper away

[mocacinno]

Is it possible that it may be overwriten because before I manage to recover it I've been able to open it in text file and it was readable wallet.old

It's possible, but it depends on how the HDD is used. If the HDD used to store heavy stuff such as OS, 3D application/game or write lots of files, it's very likely the wallet file is overwritten.
However, if you're serious to recover your wallet, first thing you should do is make RAW copy of your HDD.

exactly... Shut down your system right away, remove the HDD from your system and use a tool like dd to clone your disk without mounting it first... The longer you keep using the disk, the less chance you'll have recovering anything. Maybe you won't need the clone, but it's better to be safe than sorry!

[malevolent]

or the 4 words could also have been a "brain wallet" used to generate the private key that was also written on the paper...

I don't think there were any brainwallets actually in use by people back then, I first heard of this term in late 2011: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51397.0;all