My laptop crashed - need to restore Electrum

[avikz]

Hi all, my laptop crashed last night and I am getting blue screen of death. I hold all my bitcoins there in an Electrum wallet.

I am trying to search in Google on how to recover it but getting confused about the correct process.

Can anyone guide me to the correct process? I do have my seed, private key and password available with me. But the wallet file isn't available anymore.

Please help!

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[nc50lc]

The seed phrase is enough to restore the wallet.

The steps are simple, just follow this:

• On the 'Install Wizard' of Electrum, select "Standard Wallet" (for the 'usual' wallets) or "Wallet with 2-factor authentication" (for 2FA wallets).
• Click 'Next', select "I already have a seed", paste your seed and Electrum will automatically detect the correct derivation path.
• Click 'Next', finish creating the wallet by typing a password.

If you already created a wallet, you can access the install wizard using the menu "File->New/Restore", then type a wallet name.

[Charles-Tim]

I do have my seed, private key and password available with me. But the wallet file isn't available anymore.

The best process you can use to recover your fund as been explained above, the seed phrase is enough to generate all your wallet keys and addresses which is what you need. The password is intrinsic to the wallet, if importing the seed phrase or private key on another Electrum wallet, the password is not needed. Only what is needed is the seed phrase to recover your coin and you will need to create a new password.

[avikz]

The seed phrase is enough to restore the wallet.

The steps are simple, just follow this:

• On the 'Install Wizard' of Electrum, select "Standard Wallet" (for the 'usual' wallets) or "Wallet with 2-factor authentication" (for 2FA wallets).
• Click 'Next', select "I already have a seed", paste your seed and Electrum will automatically detect the correct derivation path.
• Click 'Next', finish creating the wallet by typing a password.

If you already created a wallet, you can access the install wizard using the menu "File->New/Restore", then type a wallet name.

Many thanks! I have been able to restore my wallet with all my bitcoins in it. I was getting this processes in the google as well but there are many other confusing processes. So I was worried on what to follow.

In reality, the process is rather simple! Thanks a lot nc5loc. You saved me from a heart attack!

[Lucius]

Hi all, my laptop crashed last night and I am getting blue screen of death. I hold all my bitcoins there in an Electrum wallet.

I guess it's a hot wallet on the computer you use for everyday work, and then it's not the smartest option to store such sensitive information in a relatively vulnerable environment. If you have a few hundred $ worth of BTC then that's not a problem, but if it's a larger amount consider a safer way to store your private keys.

I am trying to search in Google on how to recover it but getting confused about the correct process.

Be careful when searching through a search engine like Google, especially if you don't have AdBlock enabled - there are a lot of malicious crypto-related ads. It is best to ask a question on the forum, even if it seems a bit of a beginner's question - any mistake with such sensitive things can be costly.

[FatFork]

Many thanks! I have been able to restore my wallet with all my bitcoins in it. I was getting this processes in the google as well but there are many other confusing processes. So I was worried on what to follow.

In reality, the process is rather simple! Thanks a lot nc5loc. You saved me from a heart attack!

That's great. Glad you were able to restore your wallet.

I would just like to point out that if you are going to have your laptop repaired, it's possible that your old wallet files can be compromised. Whether your wallet was password protected or not, giving full access to wallet files to third parties is never a good idea. There is always the risk of brute force attacks. It would be wise to completely wipe your drive before taking it in for service or moving funds to a new, freshly created wallet.

[NeuroticFish]

It would be wise to completely wipe your drive before taking it in for service or moving funds to a new, freshly created wallet.

It may be obvious, but I'll still write it; better safe than sorry: together with that move, before generating the new seed, OP should make sure the Electrum comes from electrum.org and it's verified. If necessary, why not, even reinstall.

[Pmalek]

You might want to dedicate an USB drive to backup your encrypted wallet file or create bootable linux with persistant storage, so you'll have more option to restore your Bitcoin.

If he backs up his Electrum wallet file on USB, wouldn't he have to create a fresh backup every time he uses that wallet to receive/send bitcoin? I connect to Electrum through a hardware wallet, so the Electrum generated wallet files have no importance to me whatsoever. I have never tried to recover a wallet with the Electrum-generated wallet file.

Be careful when searching through a search engine like Google, especially if you don't have AdBlock enabled - there are a lot of malicious crypto-related ads.

I am using two ad blockers but do they really protect against Google-sponsored ads (sites) as well? Like the ones we are used to seeing at the top of the Google search results when you search for an exchange or a crypto wallet.   

[NeuroticFish]

Be careful when searching through a search engine like Google, especially if you don't have AdBlock enabled - there are a lot of malicious crypto-related ads.

I am using two ad blockers but do they really protect against Google-sponsored ads (sites) as well? Like the ones we are used to seeing at the top of the Google search results when you search for an exchange or a crypto wallet.   

The thing is that if one uses Add-On like Web Of Trust (I know that it's a bad example privacy wise, but I don't know of a better example) he has very good chance that shows orange or even red color for the malicious website. It's... a start...

[o_e_l_e_o]

If he backs up his Electrum wallet file on USB, wouldn't he have to create a fresh backup every time he uses that wallet to receive/send bitcoin? I connect to Electrum through a hardware wallet, so the Electrum generated wallet files have no importance to me whatsoever. I have never tried to recover a wallet with the Electrum-generated wallet file.

If the wallet was generated from a seed phrase, then no, he wouldn't need to make a new back up. He would not be able to save any additional information to the wallet, such as invoices, address labels, or which UTXOs were frozen, but the wallet file contains the seed phrase and would still generate all the necessary addresses. If he uses the first 20 addresses, then Electrum will automatically scan beyond that up to the gap limit. Obviously if the wallet was made up from imported private keys, then he would have to make a new back up if he ever imported a new private key.

But regardless, they way to do this is either encrypt the entire USB stick or create an encrypted folder on the USB stick, and then add the back up to it. Once the stick/folder is decrypted, you can save to it freely before encrypting it again.

I am using two ad blockers but do they really protect against Google-sponsored ads (sites) as well? Like the ones we are used to seeing at the top of the Google search results when you search for an exchange or a crypto wallet.

I don't use Google, but uBlock Origin blocks these ads. It is by far the best ad blocker out there.

[Lucius]

I am using two ad blockers but do they really protect against Google-sponsored ads (sites) as well? Like the ones we are used to seeing at the top of the Google search results when you search for an exchange or a crypto wallet.   

It's always very easy to check by searching for a keyword like "blockchain" with off and on uBlock Origin, and if you have it turned off, sometimes you can see ads at the top of the search results. Since scammers use this method extensively, I don't see why anyone should pay attention to these ads - the chances of it being a malicious link are quite high.

However, sometimes even with adblocker turned off, you won't see any sponsored links - and that's because ads sometimes use geolocation to show.