Since you said you enter it everyday for 1.5 years, i feel it's far more likely the header got corrupted.
I also suspected this is the case, but I have no idea how it must happen by accident. Header corrupion usually happens when improperly configured Windows tries to initialize encrypted drive and overwrites header. How it can happen on laptop going to hibernation I do not know. Cosmic rays hit my RAM chip maybe? Also, the computer have 2 hard drives encrypted with same password. Both drives do not accept password, I deduct that it is wrong password, not corrupted volume header at play.
Have you tried using win pe to get the bitcoin file?
BEGIN
10 One of us two are stupid.
20 I am not stupid.
END
I know a lot about computers, forensics, data rescue, repairs, troubleshooting, administration. If WinPE would get to my wallet file, I would use it.
You have a very good memory if you can remember 28 or more random characters...
One of few good things about me. Increases my nerdyness level at expense of social skills stats.
You wrote that you relied on muscle memory, but it was damaged after injury? Perhaps hypnosis will help you?
An experienced hypnotist can mentally transport you back in time and “give you a verbal command” to enter the correct password. Your muscle memory may be blocked, but it is not gone, so it is possible that you will be able to decrypt your computer. And then the hypnotist will bring you out of the altered state and you will change the password to a new one (which you will write down in a paper notebook).
Yes I relied on muscle memory. No, I sligtly bruised my leg, not arm or head. I was only stressed, studying before exam, and very mild infection of common cold. It appears it is enough to lose the muscle memory. Also I live in a place where there is no hypnotists or similar charlatans available. I am also very resistant to suggestion and hypnosis, discovered that after friends invited me to religious sect where the priestess attempted to scare me, hypnotize and other tricks just to later privately admit that I am crazy or psychopath and completely immune to contact. It will not help. Also, the password was lost in February 2016 so pretty much time have been passed since then.
In general, it seems that crypto enthusiasts very often lose access to their Bitcoin wallets precisely because of their paranoia, due to overly complex passwords that they forget.
Because the story you told is not the only such case.
There are lot of stories when people forget the encryption password or damage the key material and lose their files. But they are just files. There are also even more stories where people make some dumb opsec mistakes and FBI rummage trough their filesystems and smear them with shit in court. And they lose the files as in first example plus their freedom in addition. And then there are few examples where people encrypt their devices properly AND refuse to give password and eventually they go free. The fact that You or I have paranoia does not mean glowies are not after us.
And that brings me to my next question (small chance): have you tried a different keyboard?
Laptop computer, used as Desktop Replacement. Nothing changed.
enter it 100 times in a text document, and see where you make common mistakes?
Really good idea! Will try it.
This is the sort of thing that I'd store in a password manage though. Just saying.
I use KeePass on my computer for all sorts of passwords, but obviously preboot authentification password should be stored somewhere else. I could try to find old keepass database file on my old backups in hope that it contains the password in question but I first need to get the drives recognized and unlocked. They are failing or failed, IBM Deskstars GXP120
OP
Here is an example to bruteforce your password with hashcat or Johntheripper:
1. Lets say the password is "Bitcoinlover184%"
The only part of the password you remember and are sure about is that it contained "bitcoinlover" and maybe you remember the lenght or approx lenght.
You could either use the mask attack like this ?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a?a
This would find your password but you would need an Extreme amount of GPU power.
Rather, like i would do is implement a couple of statistically proven password rules and it would be this:
Dictonary + bruteforce attack
1. put bitcoinlover in wordlist
use masks on the password. For example:
?H?itcoinlover?d?d?d?a
This mask would crack the password very fast but is not realistic as we dont know all the Details of the password. This is just meant to show you how easy it can be to crack passwords.
Thank You, as I read Jack the Rapper documentation it might help. First I envisioned the JTR running under BAT file control, but now I also discovered software that takes wordlists directly and works with TrueCrypt and DiscCryptor under Windows. Now only the question is a good wordlist that contains my password from the password I remember and have written down.
