Electrum wallet on corrupted SSD. Seed restore not working.

[notphus]

When I enter my seed phrase (that came from electrum) while trying to restore the "next" button is greyed out. When I change to BIP39 the checksum passes. After clicking "detect existing accounts" I get no existing accounts found. I have also tried restoring with the legacy / p2sh-segwit / native segwit.

I am at a loss and after scanning forums for days I am pretty much hopeless  . Do you fine people have any suggestions?

[1714823032]

1714823032

[Charles-Tim]

Definitely not a seed phrase generated on Electrum wallet, it wouldn't have greyed out if it is Electrum wallet seed phrase. Likely BIP39 seed phrase or using a drivation path that is different from m/44'/0'/0'/0/0, m/49'/0'/0'/0/0, or m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 or any address generated by the BIP39 seed phrase is not yet funded.

For better answer, you should tell us the wallet you generated the seed phrase. Reason:

To be careful of the noncustododial wallet we are using these days

[Pmalek]

What wallet/software did you use to generate the original seed phrase? Give us the correct link if you can.
When was the original wallet created?
Was the wallet and any of its addresses ever funded?
What character do the addresses in the wallet you are trying to restore begin with? 1, 3, or bc1?
What software and version of it are you using now to recover the wallet? Link please.
Have you ever recovered your wallet from seed before and did it work?
Are you certain you wrote down the words correctly? Maybe there are typos or wrong word order.

Maybe the words are written down like this:
1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8,
9, 10, 11, 12

but you are recovering according to

1, 4, 7
2, 5, 8
3, 6, 9... etc.

[nc50lc]

-snip-  After clicking "detect existing accounts" I get no existing accounts found.

That's because it's not designed to look for every possible "accounts" but only pre-specified derivation paths listed in:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/electrum/bip39_wallet_formats.json

Since the seed phrase is obviously not made by Electrum (it's a BIP39 seed),
it's most likely from another wallet with unique derivation path that aren't listed in the '.json' file above; or just a random seed you've taken note of.

Are you certain you wrote down the words correctly? Maybe there are typos or wrong word order.

He mentioned that the "checksum passes" so the words must be in the correct order.

[Pmalek]

Since the seed phrase is obviously not made by Electrum (it's a BIP39 seed),
it's most likely from another wallet with unique derivation path that aren't listed in the '.json' file above; or just a random seed you've taken note of.

In case the original wallet has a non-standard derivation path, this wallets recovery list could maybe help. If he can remember the client that generated the seed, the derivation path might be listed in this source. He also said that the "detect existing accounts" option didn't find anything.   

He mentioned that the "checksum passes" so the words must be in the correct order.

Good point, I overlooked that part. Thanks!

[Charles-Tim]

In case the original wallet has a non-standard derivation path, this wallets recovery list could maybe help. If he can remember the client that generated the seed, the derivation path might be listed in this source. He also said that the "detect existing accounts" option didn't find anything.   

That might be of help, provided if the wallet is listed there. The easiest means is to check if the wallet he generated the seed phrase from is still existing, using the wallet for the recovery and send his coin to another address generated on reputed wallet like Electrum. The best as been to go for BIP44, BIP49 and BIP84 derivation path which will make recovery much easier than what happen to notphus. There are some wallets that should never be used because there would be need of a wallet recovery tool because they don't follow BIP 44, 49 or 84 standard and if the person do not know the derivation path and do not remember the wallet anymore, that could lead to coin loss.

[NeuroticFish]

Some sort of wild guess - I don't know how helpful, but still: was it indeed Electrum for Bitcoin? Maybe there was an Electrum - based wallet for some altcoins, like Electron Cash?

[hosseinimr93]

He mentioned that the "checksum passes" so the words must be in the correct order.

I know it's unlikely, but it's possible that checksum is OK, even if you enter the words in the wrong order.
If you enter the 12 words in the random order, on average there's ¹/₁₆ chance that it passes checksum.

[LoyceV]

If you can't restore the seed: how "corrupted" is the SSD? Any chance you can still read data from it? Create a disk image first, then mount it from a different OS for instance? Maybe you can still recover the wallet.

I've read some good things about BlueWallet guessing the correct format, but I wouldn't recommend doing that on an online (hot) device.

[nc50lc]

-snip-

If you enter the 12 words in the random order, on average there's ¹/₁₆ chance that it passes checksum.

True but isn't that 'average' only for situations when all the words are candidates for the checksum?
If the only candidates are his 12 words, then the odds should be way lower than that (depending on the words), or wont even form another combination with a valid checksum.

[hosseinimr93]

True but isn't that 'average' only for situations when all the words are candidates for the checksum?

I think the chance is still ¹/₁₆ on average. Because all the 12 words have been selected randomly. (Even the last word is random, because it's a function of a random number.)

If you select the last word from the 2048 words, there's 1/16 chance on average that the seed phrase passes the checksum.
There wouldn't be any difference, if you select 12 words from the 2048 words and then select each of the words from those 12 words.
Correct me if I am wrong, please.

[nc50lc]

If you select the last word from the 2048 words, there's 1/16 chance on average that the seed phrase passes the checksum.
There wouldn't be any difference, if you select 12 words from the 2048 words and then select each of the words from those 12 words.

Yes, always 1/16 if we're talking about the 4-bit checksum and the entropy, it's simply because a random 4-bit can only have 2^4 combinations.

But:

If you enter the 12 words in the random order, on average there's ¹/₁₆ chance that it passes checksum.

In which case, we can't use the entropy to compute the chance.
And I doubt that the chance is constant for every 12 word seed phrase since the each 12-word combinations can have lower or higher chances than the others.
So it's hard to give an accurate rate, but I doubt it's still as high as 1/16 in this case.

BTW, we're not helping in solving OP's case 

[DaveF]

BTW, we're not helping in solving OP's case 

True, but till they come back and give more info there is not a lot that we can do.

But to sum up what I see from the OP:

When I enter my seed phrase (that came from electrum)

So they think they were using electrum.

while trying to restore the "next" button is greyed out

So either the phrase is wrong OR they were not using electrum.

Until more info is given it seems we can't help.

-Dave

[o_e_l_e_o]

So it's hard to give an accurate rate, but I doubt it's still as high as 1/16 in this case.

It would still be 1/16 on average, for a 12 word seed phrase.

Consider the scenario in reverse: Rather than computing the correct checksum for the entropy we have, lets fix the checksum and vary the entropy until we find an entropy which matches that checksum. Let's say one of his words is "gravity". We use that as the last word, which gives the checksum "0000". We now vary the order of the other 11 words, giving 11! = 39,916,800 possible combinations. 1/16 of those on average would match the checksum "0000".

Whatever order you enter the 12 words in, it will generate 1 of 16 possibilities for a checksum. 1 out of those 16 possibilities will be the correct one.


Back to OP, the other possibility which has not yet been mentioned is the use of an additional passphrase.

[nc50lc]

Consider the scenario in reverse: Rather than computing the correct checksum for the entropy we have, lets fix the checksum and vary the entropy until we find an entropy which matches that checksum. Let's say one of his words is "gravity". We use that as the last word, which gives the checksum "0000". We now vary the order of the other 11 words, giving 11! = 39,916,800 possible combinations. 1/16 of those on average would match the checksum "0000".

Well, the tricky part is while the checksum is only the last 4-bits, the last word is influenced by the last few words because each word is equals to 11-bits.
I'm thinking that while it's true that the checksum last 4-bit "0000" has 1/16 chance, some of those valid mnemonic phrase's last word can't be "gravity" because there other words that end with "0000".
That's why in that scenario where the words are scrambled, we should be computing the chance based from the number of words or at least it can't be 1/16 chance.

Note: 816 - 'gravity' is actually "01100110000".

[o_e_l_e_o]

Well, the tricky part is while the checksum is only the last 4-bits, the last word is influenced by the last few words because each word is equals to 11-bits.

The last word is influenced by every word. The first 7 bits of it are entropy, the last 4 bits of it are checksum. Changing any one of the other 11 words has a 15/16 chance to change the checksum.

I'm thinking that while it's true that the checksum last 4-bit "0000" has 1/16 chance, some of those valid mnemonic phrase's last word can't be "gravity" because there other words that end with "0000".

Right. There would be a 1/16 chance that gravity could be the last word. There would also be a bunch of other words which would work as the last word.

That's why in that scenario where the words are scrambled, we should be computing the chance based from the number of words or at least it can't be 1/16 chance.

It won't be an exact 1/16 chance for any given set of 12 words, no, but it will be 1/16 on average across all possible sets of 12 words.

Note: 816 - 'gravity' is actually "01100110000".

Sure, but the first 7 bits were irrelevant to my explanation.

[nc50lc]

I'm thinking that while it's true that the checksum last 4-bit "0000" has 1/16 chance, some of those valid mnemonic phrase's last word can't be "gravity" because there other words that end with "0000".

Right. There would be a 1/16 chance that gravity could be the last word. There would also be a bunch of other words which would work as the last word.

Okay, and all of those count in the 1/16 chance because it's only based from the last 4-bit, including the non "gravity" ones.
So actual chance to get a valid seed phrase when "scrambling the 12 words" will be a lot lower than 1/16 since most of those "other words" aren't in any of the 12 words to be scrambled.

[o_e_l_e_o]

So actual chance to get a valid seed phrase when "scrambling the 12 words" will be a lot lower than 1/16 since most of those "other words" aren't in any of the 12 words to be scrambled.

But the chance doesn't change depending on the size of the pool of possibilities.

Let's stick with a presumed checksum of "0000". Of all the 2048 words in the BIP39 word list, 128 of them end in "0000". So 1 out of 16. Now, randomly discard half of the word list. You'll now have, on average, 64 words out of the available 1024 which end in "0000", so still a 1 in 16 chance. Do it again. 32 out of 512. Then 16 out of 256. Down to 1 out of 16. So any given word will always have 1 in 16 chance of giving a valid checksum.

It doesn't matter that you are de-scrambling 12 words, and so you only end up with 1 possibility for your final word. For any 12 word seed phrase, there can only be 16 possible different checksums. The final word must possess exactly 1 of those 16 possible checksums.

[hosseinimr93]

So actual chance to get a valid seed phrase when "scrambling the 12 words" will be a lot lower than 1/16 since most of those "other words" aren't in any of the 12 words to be scrambled.

It's not.
When we select the last word from the 2048 words, the chance to have a seed phrase which passes checksum is 1/16 on average. It seems that we both agree on this.

Now assume that we have 12 words instead of those 2048 words. The chance is still 1/16 on average. Because those 12 words have been selected randomly from the 2048 words.
The only difference is that instead of selecting each of 12 words from the 2048 words separately, first we selected 12 words from the 2048 words randomly and then selected each of the words from those 12 words.
This doesn't change the chance of having a seed phrase which passes checksum. In both cases, we selected 12 words from the 2048 words randomly.

I'm not saying the chance is always 1/16. That's 1/16 on average.
For example, any combination of following words give you a seed phrase which passes checksum.

Code:

action action action action action action action action action action action action 

[nc50lc]

Let's stick with a presumed checksum of "0000". Of all the 2048 words in the BIP39 word list, 128 of them end in "0000". So 1 out of 16. Now, randomly discard half of the word list. You'll now have, on average, 64 words out of the available 1024 which end in "0000", so still a 1 in 16 chance. Do it again. 32 out of 512. Then 16 out of 256. Down to 1 out of 16.

This part looks convincing, I'll settle with "average" then.
But I can't help but think that there should be a factor to consider when discarding half of the list so I'll do my research on "chance" in general.

Thank you.@notphus Pardon for the going quite off-topic; that was just about the small chance of your seed phrase's "good checksum" to be false-positive.