Newbie here - Securing Wallet and Reinstalling Bitcoin Questions

[The-Real-Link]

  Hi everyone,

  Firstly I did read the giant security thread for wallet dat and found it somewhat confusing.  Just had a couple quick questions here please.

  1.  Right now I have Bitcoin installed in one directory and have been backing up wallet.dat.  Now if I were to be compromised, even if I did restore my wallet.dat from a backup file (haven't maxed the addresses), it wouldn't matter since the address itself is made invalid, right?  I figure I could reinstall/redownload bitcoin, get a new address, and change all my miners to that and it'd be fixed.

  2.  If I'd like to change my current Bitcoin directory, I uninstall it but aside from wallet.dat, what required data should be moved?  I of course want to make sure I have the same address but not sure if that's possible.  I figure the block data, if saved beforehand, would save a lot of time at any rate from having to be re-downloaded. 

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  Several posters said to put wallet.dat on a USB stick and mount that only when you update the wallet.  This sounds good in theory but can you make Bitcoin's client itself prompt or error on the launch if you forgot to put the USB drive in when launching the client?  It would just seem like a potential risk of overwriting your wallet, but once the local file is up to date, it seems like it'd be fine.  Are there any other risks of putting the dat file on a USB drive (aside from things like corruption or losing it)?

[DeathAndTaxes]

1.  yes if you believe your wallet.dat has been compromised you should immediately transfer all funds to a new wallet.  Nobody cares about addresses as much as the Bitcoins.  We backup wallets because if you have no backup and lose your wallet.dat you have permanently lost any funds it cointained.

2. you only NEED to make a backup of the wallet.dat.  Not sure what you mean by keeping address the wallet.dat contains all your addresses (and their associated keys).

You may wish to also copy the blockchain to the new install location as it will keep your from needing to slowly download it again.

[The-Real-Link]

  Hi Death,
 
  Thanks very much.  I think I'm just worrying a bit much .  Well yeah, of course I care about the coins more than the addresses but yep, gotcha.  Likewise, I had figured I was doing it right.  Good to know in the future with regards to the block chain though as opposed to waiting hours for a re-download.  Thanks.

[codymanix]

The wallet.dat contains your own private keys which belongs to your receiving addresses.
Because of that, anybody which has a copy of your wallet.dat is able to transfer your money to any other bitcoin address.

[mika]

My bitcoin qt program has been magically uninstalled over the weekend while my pc was on with full AV and Firewalls. Has this happend to anyone else.

I think someone has stolen my wallet.dat file, I have it backed up but Do I have to reinstall bitcoin qt on my other laptop and wait the few hours again to sync or can I create a new wallet.dat file to save on time.

Cheers

Crimson

[mika]

Nobody can answer this....

I installed bitcoin again and I on use my wallet.dat file using truecrypt now.

I wish someone had an idea. I had eset nod32 running on my machine so I don't know how someone was able to comprimise my pc!!

[Gunny]

You can download the blockchain fast from here: http://eu1.bitcoincharts.com/blockchain/

While you wait for the download go to a KNOWN CLEAN computer (use a Linux boot CD) and make a paper wallet here: https://www.bitaddress.org/

PRINT IT OUT.  DO NOT LOSE IT.

Then restore your wallet.dat and you should see your coins.  Immediately transfer them to the paper wallet.  That will make your coins safe until you are sure your computer is clean.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Then restore your wallet.dat and you should see your coins.  Immediately transfer them to the paper wallet.  That will make your coins safe until you are sure your computer is clean.

This.  If you wallet was stolen the fact that you didn't do it immediately likely means the coins are already gone but anytime a wallet is compromised one should immediately transfers full value to a new wallet (preferably one on another machine). Using a temporary online wallet like MtGox or strongcoin account is fine because speed is of the essence. 

With 2+ copies of private keys existing it is simply a race of who gets a transaction into a block first.  With a good thief you won't have a chance they will transfer full balance of wallet.dat to a new address in a matter of seconds.  Maybe you got lucky and it was a "bad" thief.