Encrypted wallet.dat, lost password, any solutions?

[malaimult]

so do you really cracked or you just refresh his memory ?

[riX]

I cracked it.. Revalins code up above would have done it in an hour..



EDIT: Don't know if OP was impressed though, haven't heard from him, no reply to the PM where I sent him the right pwd. He transferred the bitcoins to a new address, except the 0.1 BTC I stole when testing (hope you're not angry about that 1zbtc, I'll give it back if you want )

[vuce]

I cracked it.. Revalins code up above would have done it in an hour..



EDIT: Don't know if OP was impressed though, haven't heard from him, no reply to the PM where I sent him the right pwd. He transferred the bitcoins to a new address, except the 0.01 BTC I stole when testing (hope you're not angry about that 1zbtc, I'll give it back if you want )

and no 50-100 BTC reward that was promised? 

[riX]

No, but that's ok, I told him I didn't need any reward. Unless he's got several wallets I would have taken a substantial amount of his coins to increase my holdings with a fraction of a percent..

[malaimult]

good to know that. maybe others will need your help

[jevon]

What type of error was it? Capitalization, missing character, extra character, transposed, etc?

[riX]

What type of error was it? Capitalization, missing character, extra character, transposed, etc?

Extra char..

[nikiwaibel]

same issue (typed new passphrase wrong twice) here: transposed adjacent chars

... found by 5th guess!!!

[Evolvex]

if it really was you who put the password the best piece of hardware you can use right now is your brain

relax and try to recreate the whole scenario, time, place, mindset of when you were leaning on the bitcoin client, then put your hands on the keyboard, focus and start trying

hopefully the password will emerge

source: my own experience, I have set up a password on a 50 btc worth wallet. This is how it happened:

It was late night in a hostel, the only computer avaiable, not only a public a PC but I had to use standing up, and, to increase the anxiety level, I was drinking beer. Put the password and shutdown the PC. Then I left the place I was for three days, here is where I needed the password and: WTF?! Wrong password! Don't panic.  At this time the password only existed on my brain, then just said to myself I was going to remeber. I did exactly as I told you above. Took me one day to go back to the place I had set up the password. And two more days acting like "12:01" movie to finally extract it from my mind. The pass was a 12 chars long phrase.

Hope this inspires you.

Havent got to the end of the post yet, however, I think this is good advice - when I lose something I always ask myself "if I was xxx where would I be", its useful to put yourself in the same frame of mind, location and emotion you were in, helps jog the memory, everythings stored up there for a while - just gotta find it.

[Evolvex]

Interesting thread, glad you got your bitcoins back - I think if bitcoin is to take off into the mainstream - solutions to lost coins need to be found.

I loved all the code by the way guys - I dont really code to well, but its nice to at least have an attempt to read it - all above me

[Stephen Gornick]

I think if bitcoin is to take off into the mainstream - solutions to lost coins need to be found.

Are you are making the assumption that if coins are lost, there will be price deflation (due to there being less coins).  Price deflation means hoarding.  Hoarding means less spending.  Thus Bitcoin fail.  Is that your line of thinking on the lost coins topic?

[HeavyMetal]

When setting the password a "show password" button would be nice. You can always not click it if you are not alone.

[Ashitank]

I have manged to loose my passshare key, can any body tell what are the exact steps I could do as mentioned in this thread to recover lost passshare key, i do remember my passhare but I am not able to get it right  .

[Revalin]

If you want to use my script:

Install Ruby - http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/
Save the script to brute.rb in the same directory as bitcoind
Edit the script to change the passphrase from "oops" to your best guess
Start up bitcoind
run: ruby brute.rb

The script was originally for Linux but it should work on OSX or Windows with some small changes.

[Ashitank]

Thanks for the Help Revalin.

I was running win7 , so I will just use a live Linux Ubuntu cd & copy wallet.dat over to linux & try to work it out.

[Revalin]

Don't forget:  set an RPC password

Also, do it while disconnected from the net so it's not trying to download the blockchain while it runs.  That'll just slow things down.

[Ashitank]

Hi Revalin,

I have run the script following all the steps as you suggested , it hardly takes brute.rb to run for few seconds I get message bitcoind not found in current dir.

Am I doing some steps wrong , Have changed passphrase from oops to what i knew of my password.

Please let me know if I am doing some thing wrong.

Regards,
Ashitank

[Revalin]

Did you put it in the same dir as bitcoind? 

It needs to be able to run it and it only looks in the current dir.

[Ashitank]

Yup brute.rb is in dir /home/.bitcoin/

[Ashitank]

I have Pm you Revalin , please check