Harddrive Failure: I lost wallet.dat to altcoin but have address and password.

[coinits]

Can I recreate it? I have all but one wallet backed up and would like to recreate it if possible. Can I? How? Less than $5 in it but would like it just because it is mine I have address and password.

[pedrog]

You need the private key, is the HDD beyond usable?

[coinits]

You need the private key, is the HDD beyond usable?

Gone. Broken inside.

[readysalted89]

There are companies that specialize in recovering data from broken hard drives, but their services are expensive (more than $5). Unless you backed up the private key to your address you have probably lost your coins. If your hard drive still runs but shows no files on it you could try scanning it with free software to try recovering the data. If you plan on doing this it's best not to reformat the drive or write any new files to it until after you have scanned it i case you overwrite the area containing your wallet.dat.

You can find data recovery freeware here.

http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html

[pedrog]

You need the private key, is the HDD beyond usable?

Gone. Broken inside.

Well, in that case, it's lost, time to improve your backup system.

[readysalted89]

You need the private key, is the HDD beyond usable?

Gone. Broken inside.

Well, in that case, it's lost, time to improve your backup system.

If you are going to throw your hard drive in the bin you could try some extremely dodgy fixes first, but they will very likely damage the hard drive more instead of fixing it.

Read the whole of this thread and it will describe replacing the circuit board from an identical model of hard drive. However the most extreme trick it describes is putting your hard drive in a zip lock bag, then putting it in the freezer. According to the thread it will probably just damage the drive further, but you might have a 10% chance of getting it working long enough to recover your wallet.dat

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/112050/recovering-data-from-a-damaged-hard-drive-the-freezer-trick

[mkmen]

You can't.

[Mudd]

Learn from your mistakes on this and be thankful it was only five dollars worth of coins. You should have multiple back ups and maybe even write the private keys down too. On some bitcoin wallets yiou can even recover them from a seed so that is an extra layer of protection.

[cakir]

Coins are gone. But you may run recovery software to check the broken HDD.

Always back up your wallet.dat into a flash drive, mobile phone etc.

[dimez]

recovery is only possible with the help of special software for data recovery

[ðºÞæ]

I would not waste my time if less than $5 worth on it. It really boils down to how much value 1 hour of your life.

[foxkyu]

Gone. Broken inside.

so the hdd can't be used anymore? even for open it in the OS?
but if the hdd can be open in OS,try to use partition magic to recovery your hdd

[lite]

Can I recreate it? I have all but one wallet backed up and would like to recreate it if possible. Can I? How? Less than $5 in it but would like it just because it is mine I have address and password.

if you lost your wallet.dat - forget your coins.if you have private keys you can restore your balance.

[readysalted89]

I would keep the broken hard drive if there is a chance the $5 worth of coins could become worth a fortune in the future. It would then be worth paying a data recovery company to retrieve the wallet.dat. There was someone who brought a load of bitcoins when they were worthless, then binned the laptop containing the wallet.dat when it broke. He was trying to find it on a land fill site when they became worth millions, but gave up when he saw the scale of the dump.

[coinits]

Everything else, anything of value, is backed up quadrupled or better. This coin loss was a couple of days of mining of Mazacoin. I was out of town using my laptop to download the wallet and pointed my Antminer at a pool. I did not back it up and that's on me.

My drive is gone so it is what it is. If Maza is worth millions someday then you guys come to this thread to offer condolences or laugh at me

[chaosknight]

you can contact a disk recovery service and see if it helps
else you will need private key and password of that wallet to get access

[MicroGuy]

Can I recreate it? I have all but one wallet backed up and would like to recreate it if possible. Can I? How? Less than $5 in it but would like it just because it is mine I have address and password.

Why is Satoshi himself asking us peons such questions.  

[coinits]

Can I recreate it? I have all but one wallet backed up and would like to recreate it if possible. Can I? How? Less than $5 in it but would like it just because it is mine I have address and password.

Why is Satoshi himself asking us peons such questions.  

It's a test.