weird wallet dot files extensions

[tothemoon10]

Hi,

Im going over more old hard drives, I a bit of weird testing in 2010-2013.

When doing search for "wallet.dat" and "wallet" from old Windows hard drives (on external disk reader now) I am finding files such as these:

Apart from the
wallet.dat file / files  that we know to investigate fully

there are;


wallet.cpp
wallet.h
wallet_tests.cpp
walletdb.cpp
walletdb.h
walletmodel.cpp
walletmodel.h


Should I investigate those files extensions, might there be something of value there.

Thanks

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[mocacinno]

nope

Those files are just bitcoin's sourcecode...
The only thing you can do with those files is compile them into a binary, they don't contain private keys or other private information... Unless you took a wallet.dat and manually changed the extension to hide it in plain sight.

If you can open the file with a text editor (kate, gedit, vi, nano, notepad, notepad++,...) and read actual code, it's an ascii file and it's just sourcecode... If you cannot open these files because they're pure gibberish (and with gibberish i mean just random looking weird characters), it *might* be a hidden wallet file... But since the names you list there are 100% the names of the files containing bitcoin's sourcecode, i think the odds for a hidden wallet are slim to none.

[tothemoon10]

thanks

I know I also have at least one instance of electrum on one of my old disks

Is there a similar file to wallet.dat to search for to find Electrum wallet

thanks

[mocacinno]

thanks

I know I also have at least one instance of electrum on one of my old disks

Is there a similar file to wallet.dat to search for to find Electrum wallet

thanks

yes.
Electrum also uses wallets, IIRC, the default wallet is called default_wallet, but electrum makes it really easy to pick different names for new wallets...
There are default places where both bitcoin core and electrum store their wallet files (not in the same place, they both have their own default folder), but those paths differ between different operating systems... Also, both electrum and bitcoin core allow you to create wallets in about any path you want, they just also happen to have a default path.

[tothemoon10]

thanks, I have some 15-20 old drives.
First I will find the one with Electrum on it and then start searching.


I am working on one disk now, it would not open on Windows but I can browse it with Unbuntu.

On it I found one wallet.dat file I will test (rather exciting to see).

But also;

appcrash_bitcoin-qt.exe
bitcoin-qt.exe
bitcoin-0.8.1-win32.zip
bitcoind.exe
bitcoin_testnet.png (green bitcoin logo)
bitcoin.ink



Might all that be something interesting, to warrant further investigations. Or should I be fine with the wallet.dat file.

Thanks

[Pmalek]

appcrash_bitcoin-qt.exe
bitcoin-qt.exe
bitcoin-0.8.1-win32.zip
bitcoind.exe
bitcoin_testnet.png (green bitcoin logo)
bitcoin.ink

Most of those are just part of the Bitcoin qt client, now known as Bitcoin Core. The zip file probably contains the installation for Bitcoin qt. The .png file is the image file for the logo. .ink is also some sort of image extension I think.

Might all that be something interesting, to warrant further investigations. Or should I be fine with the wallet.dat file.

The wallet file is the only thing you should care about. Everything else are just files left on the disk from a time you had the Bitcoin QT client installed on your computer.

[nc50lc]

I know I also have at least one instance of electrum on one of my old disks

Electrum's wallet file doesn't have a strict naming system, it can be named anything and it doesn't have an extension like ".dat"
The default names are "default_wallet" for the first, "wallet_1" for the next, then "wallet_2" and so forth (if you didn't changed the wallet name).
But if it's from a very old version, look for "electrum.dat" file.

[tothemoon10]

I have now found an old drive where Electrum was downloaded and installed at some point, around 2014.
I removed that drive from my old PC hardware, but I regret that now I should have tried to start up the pc instead. But it can not be reassembled as it broke when I opened it.

I can find some of the Electrum files when I search the disk.
But I have not found a wallet file connected to Electrum.

How to go about this.
Is there a way to actually boot up, start up the old Electrum app from the hard disk and then it will itself find its wallet.

Is there a default location for wallets.

Maybe I can make some screenshots of what I see on various searches "Bitcoin" "Electrum" etc to see if anyone gets any good ideas.

Big thanks.

[LoyceV]

I have now found an old drive where Electrum was downloaded and installed at some point, around 2014.
I removed that drive from my old PC hardware, but I regret that now I should have tried to start up the pc instead. But it can not be reassembled as it broke when I opened it.

Which part broke? I assume you didn't destroy the entire PC.

Is there a way to actually boot up, start up the old Electrum app from the hard disk and then it will itself find its wallet.

Ideally, you'll boot the drive in the original computer. It may work to boot it after installing it in another PC, but, from my very old experience using Windows, Windows is likely to complain hard about missing and found hardware.

Is there a default location for wallets.

See:

On Windows:

    Show hidden files
    Go to \Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Electrum (or %APPDATA%\Electrum)

Maybe I can make some screenshots of what I see on various searches "Bitcoin" "Electrum" etc to see if anyone gets any good ideas.

I don't know what files Electrum created in 2014, but now (on Linux) it puts all wallets by default in ~/.electrum/wallets/ . Maybe you can search for a "wallets" directory. The files in there don't have any extension.

[tothemoon10]

This was a mini-micro computer and I had to break it up to reach the hard drive. Maybe maybe it can be reassembled, but unlikely.


Also maybe this was actually a Linux machine, I do not remember how I used it.

I have tried to read the drive on Windows, did not work. On Mac did not work. But my old Ubuntu was able to read the disk 159 GB.

Here are some screenshots of what comes up when I read it.
One is the icon for the Electrum.
I do have some vague memory of installing Electrum on this.

If these screenshots give any ideas of what this might be and how to go about much appreciated.
Maybe a trained eye can see if this is Windows or Linux or what it is.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JFn9327wFOJZ8PJkOHTyS8KaXjeRkM0_objgFk4yIlE/edit?usp=sharing

[nc50lc]

How to go about this.
Is there a way to actually boot up, start up the old Electrum app from the hard disk and then it will itself find its wallet.

The default installation and data directory has always been the same since 2014, except if you've used the "portable version" or set a custom datadir.

With that; if you didn't wiped the disk, the OS is intact and you're able to boot it:
you can install the latest version of Electrum and it should be able to find and open the wallet files without issues if it's still there (but don't).
Electrum will automatically search for the last opened wallet file logged in the config file in Electrum's data directory, clicking "next" will upgrade that wallet file but it might encounter issues during that process.
So it's best to find the wallet file first to be able to create a backup in case it happen.

[tothemoon10]

Ohh my bad here are the screenshots open.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JFn9327wFOJZ8PJkOHTyS8KaXjeRkM0_objgFk4yIlE/edit?usp=sharing

[mocacinno]

Ohh my bad here are the screenshots open.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JFn9327wFOJZ8PJkOHTyS8KaXjeRkM0_objgFk4yIlE/edit?usp=sharing

The first screenshot shows a couple of images and a shortcut for your desktop
Second one also some pictures and a shortcut
Thirth one also some pictures and a shortcut
Fourth one shows the root of a linux volume

None of the screenshots contain any files that i would identify as a wallet file.
Go and look in the /home/ folder, iterate trough the users in the home folder and look for /home/[user]/.bitcoin/ and /home/[user]/.electrum folders.

If you find a user /home/[user]/.bitcoin/ folder look if there's a wallet.dat file, if not: open bitcoin.conf and see if there's a different wallet path, if not: look if /home/[user]/.bash_history exists and see if you can find any indication of how you started bitcoin core

If you find a /home/[user]/.electrum, look if there's a wallet subfolder containing wallets

[tothemoon10]

Aha very interesting, so this old laptop  (it was a very very small micro machine) probably was a Linux machine then.

In that case try to find where the wallet would be on a Linux machine.
But the weird thing is that I cant seem to find where the Electrum folder seems to be. I can only find those files as a clue that there should have been Electrum on this machine.

[mocacinno]

Aha very interesting, so this old laptop  (it was a very very small micro machine) probably was a Linux machine then.

In that case try to find where the wallet would be on a Linux machine.
But the weird thing is that I cant seem to find where the Electrum folder seems to be. I can only find those files as a clue that there should have been Electrum on this machine.

folders staring with a dot (.) are hidden (in this case .bitcoin and .electrum)... Either use a terminal, or look at your gui file explorer's settings to show hidden files and folders... I updated my previous post with the paths that could be interesting.

[tothemoon10]

Aha   I am viewing this on an old Ubuntu instance, I will look for how to see hidden files in Ubuntu.

I have updated the document with one more photo/screenshot of /users/   there is only one user  "ha**"  and then what comes up when I click on that.

There is no .bitcoin  or  .electrum     but as you say I must figure out how to look for hidden files.



I try to view hidden files in Ubuntu by pressing Ctrl+h
But the weird thing is that when I do that it shows fewer files, not more.
So I think somehow the default, where I have posted the screenshot IS to view "all". And that when I press ctrl+h then is removes some files from view.

[mocacinno]

Aha   I am viewing this on an old Ubuntu instance, I will look for how to see hidden files in Ubuntu.

I have updated the document with one more photo/screenshot of /users/   there is only one user  "ha**"  and then what comes up when I click on that.

There is no .bitcoin  or  .electrum     but as you say I must figure out how to look for hidden files.



I try to view hidden files in Ubuntu by pressing Ctrl+h
But the weird thing is that when I do that it shows fewer files, not more.
So I think somehow the default, where I have posted the screenshot IS to view "all". And that when I press ctrl+h then is removes some files from view.

I do see hidden files in your new screenshot... So if there's no .bitcoin or .electrum folder, odds are there isn't one to begin with.
Is it possible you used root (eventough, within ubuntu it's hard to switch to root)? In that case, you can also check /root/ for .bitcoin or .electrum folders.

BTW, just fyi, it's your gui file manager that's hiding those hidden folders (not your os), so you'll probably have to figure out which file manager it is (i seldomly use the graphical shell, so i cannot recognize it from the screenshot) and then find a walktrough on how to view hidden files and folders for your specific file manager. Or, like i previously proposed, you can always just use a terminal (which i personally find much easyer to use, but that's probably personal taste).

Code:

cd /home/h**/
#or, if searching a disk you mounted, search the mountpoint with "mount" then do
cd /whatevermountpoint/home/h**/
ls -ltrha | grep -i -e bit -e elec

[tothemoon10]

Could there be on this disk that there is one Linux install AND one Windows install?

And that for some reason we only see the Linux instance when using and external disk reader. So that the Windows instance is hidden from us.

But that somehow even if its hidden, some files like those Electrum files still show when doing searches on the disk.
So that the Electrum instance and wallet is somehow on the hidden-Windows-part of the disk and I need to figure out how to access that somehow.

[mocacinno]

Could there be on this disk that there is one Linux install AND one Windows install?

And that for some reason we only see the Linux instance when using and external disk reader. So that the Windows instance is hidden from us.

But that somehow even if its hidden, some files like those Electrum files still show when doing searches on the disk.
So that the Electrum instance and wallet is somehow on the hidden-Windows-part of the disk and I need to figure out how to access that somehow.

Part of this is possible, part of it isn't.
A disk can have multiple partions, and it's possible to install linux on one partion an windows on another one (dual boot).
However, searching a mounted partition and finding hits on another one that's not mounted is not possible.

You can always use fdisk to see if there are more than one partition on your disk, so you can verify if every partition is mounted.
If you don't know how to use fdisk, you can try gparted, that should also work. There are other ways of finding disks and partitions, but gparted is a user-friendly gui that makes thing pretty easy.

But, the thing is, you see source files on the linux partition, you see desktop shortcuts and images on your linux partition... I guess you tried installing a bitcoin client on your linux partition, even if there's an unmounted windows partition on the disk this doesn't change the fact you clearly experimented with bitcoin while running a linux os.