EPIC fail

[CIYAM]

Im suppose to run the utility and use command DB_recover right? How do I access the utility?

I gather that Berkeley DB is included with many (most?) Linux distros so from a console I can type the command: db_recover

If you are not running Linux then you may be able to find the relevant utility here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/berkeleydb/downloads/index-082944.html

You need to make sure it is the correct version (I think I had read something about Bitcoin changing to Berkeley DB 4.8 a while back).

I assume then you would simply open a command prompt and change to the Bitcoin app data path and type "db_recover" (with whatever path prefix might be needed).

Once again I have never used Berkeley DB nor played with any of the Bitcoin source so advice from anyone that has more relevant experience should be better trusted than my own.


Cheers,

Ian.

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[CIYAM]

I just read the following advice on another similar thread:

1. Make sure you have a backup of the wallet.dat
2. delete all files except wallet.dat from the APPDATA\bitcoin directory (not using windows, but I think you should be able to find it)
3. start bitcoin-qt.exe then wait for the block chain to download..a few hours if I recall correctly

Apparently this worked for the other user with a similar problem to yours so maybe give this a go (be sure to backup everything you are going to delete just in case).


Cheers,

Ian.

[NINJA--]

I already tried deleting everything from folder and letting chain load. Doesnt help.

I just installed ubuntu on a spare HD hoping this is a windows problem and I can get to my coins with ubuntu. I have the wallet installed and the chain downloaded but Im not sure where to put my wallet.dat file. A google search says copy it to ~/.bitcoin/wallet.dat but I dont know where that is. I tried to search for it with the standard search bar and the terminal but couldnt find that location. Ive never used linux before so Im not sure where to look.

[legolouman]

I'm beginning to think your wallet is corrupted. Try putting the 2nd HDD (the one that is failing,but has a backup) into the freezer for a few hours. That should temp fix the HDD, and let you access the wallet.

[CIYAM]

I already tried deleting everything from folder and letting chain load. Doesnt help.

Ouch - that's not good.

A google search says copy it to ~/.bitcoin/wallet.dat but I dont know where that is.

In bash the ~ is short for the "home" folder so for example if I do ls ~/*.txt on my Linux box it would be identical to ls /home/ian/*.txt.

So I'd expect there to be a .bitcoin directory below the home directory of the user that you used to install Bitcoin (if I used "ian" then on my machine then the full path would be /home/ian/.bitcoin/wallet.dat).

I tend to agree with legolouman that things are not looking good with this wallet file (i.e. I seriously doubt it will work by just moving the file to Linux).


Cheers,

Ian.

[NINJA--]

Hey mike, you said you can handle this in 10 minutes. Can you please tell me what to do?

[legolouman]

Hey mike, you said you can handle this in 10 minutes. Can you please tell me what to do?

I don't think he can actually do it regardless of damage. And 600 BTC seems like a lot or private keys involved. Try the freezer trick!

[NINJA--]

Western digital is going to try and recover my data off the drive. I have important stuff on that drive besides the wallet file. I think Im going to let them do what they do before I stick it in the freezer.

[fred0]

I already tried deleting everything from folder and letting chain load. Doesnt help.

I just installed ubuntu on a spare HD hoping this is a windows problem and I can get to my coins with ubuntu. I have the wallet installed and the chain downloaded but Im not sure where to put my wallet.dat file. A google search says copy it to ~/.bitcoin/wallet.dat but I dont know where that is. I tried to search for it with the standard search bar and the terminal but couldnt find that location. Ive never used linux before so Im not sure where to look.

Using ubuntu, ctrl-H will show hidden files in the file manager.

.bitcoin is a hidden directory in your home directory, wallet.dat goes there.

Hard drive failures are a PITA!

[NINJA--]

Bitcoin version 0.5.1-beta
Default data directory C:\Users\NINJA\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin
Bound to port 8333
Loading addresses...
dbenv.open strLogDir=C:\Users\NINJA\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin/database strErrorFile=C:\Users\NINJA\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin/db.log
Loaded 0 addresses
 addresses               110ms
Loading block index...
000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f
000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f
4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b
CBlock(hash=000000000019d6689c08, ver=1, hashPrevBlock=00000000000000000000, hashMerkleRoot=4a5e1e4baa, nTime=1231006505, nBits=1d00ffff, nNonce=2083236893, vtx=1)
  CTransaction(hash=4a5e1e4baa, ver=1, vin.size=1, vout.size=1, nLockTime=0)
    CTxIn(COutPoint(0000000000, -1), coinbase 04ffff001d0104455468652054696d65732030332f4a616e2f32303039204368616e63656c6c6f7 2206f6e206272696e6b206f66207365636f6e64206261696c6f757420666f722062616e6b73)
    CTxOut(nValue=50.00000000, scriptPubKey=04678afdb0fe5548271967f1a67130)
  vMerkleTree: 4a5e1e4baa
SetBestChain: new best=000000000019d6689c08  height=0  work=4295032833
 block index              20ms
Loading wallet...


************************
EXCEPTION: 11DbException       
Db::open: Invalid argument       
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe in Runaway exception       

[casascius]

Hey mike, you said you can handle this in 10 minutes. Can you please tell me what to do?

I don't think he can actually do it regardless of damage. And 600 BTC seems like a lot or private keys involved. Try the freezer trick!

If you can get a wallet.dat off the machine, send it my way, encrypted if possible, but otherwise, making sure I'm there and responsive before you do.

Sure, sending your wallet.dat to somebody else puts you at risk of them scamming you.  I think I'm well known enough that that shouldn't be a concern.  By the same token, I could theoretically scam all the holders of my physical coins for 32k btc (http://casascius.appspot.com) but I don't.

If you want to know what I'm going to do ahead of time, I am going to: 1-scan the file you give me for the byte sequence 0x04 0x20, 2-grab the 32 bytes after each occurrence, 3-try to use that as a private key 4-import it into a new wallet. 5-do a rescan (which is what takes up to 10 minutes), and 6-send you the balance.  If you're able, you're welcome to take a whack at it yourself.

note that my method doesn't require Berkeley DB to be able to understand anything in the file - part or all of your file could be bad and it doesn't matter - I am just hunting down private keys out of the file and trying them all to see what's on them.

[NINJA--]

Any way you can tell me what to do? If this process is a simple as you say it is I should be able to handle it if you give me instructions. I would like the experience so I know what to do if this happens again. I will tip generously.

[casascius]

Any way you can tell me what to do? If this process is a simple as you say it is I should be able to handle it if you give me instructions. I would like the experience so I know what to do if this happens again. I will tip generously.

Doing what I do the way I do it requires my customized copy of bitcoind (which I run under Linux), as well as a custom program I wrote in C# (Microsoft Visual Studio 2010).  It's simple for me because I will just run my own code already prepared to do it.  If you want to reproduce what I've done, give me an idea of your programming experience level so we're speaking the same language.

In short, my modifications to bitcoind are to include sipa's importprivkey patch, modified to allow me to defer the blockchain scan to a later time of my choosing, so I can import unlimited private keys without needing to wait 5-10 minutes for each one to import.

[NINJA--]

I have no programming experience but Im not computer illiterate and I can follow directions.

[casascius]

I have no programming experience but Im not computer illiterate and I can follow directions.

To the extent those directions are to modify source code to a computer program and recompile it, I'm afraid I can't help much.

I believe someone else published a private key recovery tool for Linux that can scan a whole file system, intended for people who deleted their wallet.dat.  I don't remember what it is called.  I provided input as to how the tool could work, basically it searches the entire disk for byte sequences associated with bitcoin wallets, and then looks for 0x04 0x20 and attempts to grab keys.  It's been a while and I've never had to use it, otherwise I might remember the name.  But it should be able to work on a single wallet.dat file the same way it could work on a whole file system.

[NINJA--]

What do you mean you cant help much? You cant help me do it or you cant do it either? Have you done this before?

[casascius]

What do you mean you cant help much? You cant help me do it or you cant do it either? Have you done this before?

I think you imagine the directions are going to be "click here, open this, type that".

No, the directions are going to be: Use git to clone a copy of the bitcoin source code, apply the sipa wallet patch, make a couple certain modifications to eliminate his wallet rescan, then recompile.  Get casascius bitcoin utility from github, add (some code), compile.

Can you do this?  I suppose what I mean is, teaching someone how to apply a source code patch and compile it into Bitcoin from scratch is beyond the scope of what I'm willing to do, time wise.  In fact, I have already explained in technical terms what needs to be done (with reference to the 0x04 0x20 and the 32-bytes that follow) and if that doesn't make sense to you, you probably will need assistance trying to duplicate what I have done - which is to have done custom programming.

My way isn't the only way though.  I have also been saying that I believe somebody has already created a utility that likely does the exact same thing my programming does: you may be better off trying to find it here in the forums than to build it yourself.

I found a link to it.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25091.0

Another thread I started on this same subject: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=22697.0

[trentzb]

If you want coins back I would encourage you to ask Mike nicely to do it for you in exchange for a generous reward. He has recovered others' although I am sure you know there is no guarantees.

Alternately git those sources and start hacking

[NINJA--]

I know what you mean. I have people ask me for help with computers and its often difficult explaining things to them. You can tell them 10 times but they dont understand like you do. Like when I was trying to find the location of my wallet.dat on ubuntu. I looked up the location and had the command ~/.bitcoin/wallet.dat but I still didnt know what to do with it. Would be nightmare trying to walk me through this. Especially on a OS I know nothing about. Its not impossible but I can understand why you dont want to.

Im going to be honest. Ive been fucking with this for days. I dont know what else to do. Im desperate. I would appreciate you taking a stab at it but Im sure you understand why I would rather do it myself. Ive spent all this money on equipment and had all this stuff running day and night for months. Its hard handing my wallet over to somebody on the forums. You said your way isnt the only way. What other options do I have? I would like to do everything I can before I hand over my wallet.

[payb.tc]

I know what you mean. I have people ask me for help with computers and its often difficult explaining things to them. You can tell them 10 times but they dont understand like you do. Like when I was trying to find the location of my wallet.dat on ubuntu. I looked up the location and had the command ~/.bitcoin/wallet.dat but I still didnt know what to do with it. Would be nightmare trying to walk me through this. Especially on a OS I know nothing about. Its not impossible but I can understand why you dont want to.

Im going to be honest. Ive been fucking with this for days. I dont know what else to do. Im desperate. I would appreciate you taking a stab at it but Im sure you understand why I would rather do it myself. Ive spent all this money on equipment and had all this stuff running day and night for months. Its hard handing my wallet over to somebody on the forums. You said your way isnt the only way. What other options do I have? I would like to do everything I can before I hand over my wallet.

ninja, do you have a copy of pywallet?

you could follow casascius' instructions for finding the private keys in your wallet file just by using a simple hex editor:

http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm

doing that is almost certainly the slow way, because you'd be copying and pasting everything individually (and who knows how many keys are in your wallet), but at least you'd have the hex strings corresponding to your private keys.

open that program, load (a copy of) your wallet into it, and search for hex string 04 20. select the next 32 bytes after each one and choose clipboard->copy as hex string.