How to find a wallet.dat file that had no extension

HI-TEC99

legendary

Activity: 2772

Merit: 2846

Was your wallet.dat file encrypted (was it password protected)?

How old was the bitcoin software you used to generate it? The database it uses changed from one type to another years ago. During 2013 it changed from using Berkeley DB to LevelDB.

When you say the "original bitcoin wallet program" do you mean the first ever bitcoin software released by satoshi?

I have the original bitcoin wallet program, which was version 0.1.0

I tested generating three different wallet.dat files with it, and opening them in a hex editor. The results are below. They all begin with this sequence of bytes "00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 31 05 00 09 00 00 00 00 20". If you search your hard drive for that sequence you might locate an old wallet file.

Quote

00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 31 05 00 09 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 09 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 DA 40 08 00 00 00 29 00 A7 04 B9 12 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Quote

00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 31 05 00 09 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 09 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 D9 40 08 00 00 00 1D 00 BE 0B C7 29 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Quote

00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 31 05 00 09 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 09 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 D9 40 08 00 00 00 1E 00 29 54 36 19 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

mackminer

sr. member

Activity: 348

Merit: 251

Quote from: vh on May 30, 2017, 11:57:33 AM

Quote from: mackminer on May 30, 2017, 03:03:53 AM

Thanks for this but PoolA seems to be bringing up all sorts of stuff that will make it difficult to test all files in the bitcoin client.....can you think or find something more unique by any chance?

You can linux grep for known addresses in the file. It will return a binary file warning but match.
It is also a berkeley db file, you can creatively leverage that.

I actually am using grep....not sure how to search for a berkeley db file....

vh

hero member

Activity: 699

Merit: 666

Quote from: mackminer on May 30, 2017, 03:03:53 AM

Thanks for this but PoolA seems to be bringing up all sorts of stuff that will make it difficult to test all files in the bitcoin client.....can you think or find something more unique by any chance?

You can linux grep for known addresses in the file. It will return a binary file warning but match.
It is also a berkeley db file, you can creatively leverage that.

Casy

member

Activity: 149

Merit: 22

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Quote from: mackminer on May 30, 2017, 03:03:53 AM

Thanks for this but PoolA seems to be bringing up all sorts of stuff that will make it difficult to test all files in the bitcoin client.....can you think or find something more unique by any chance?

Ok, that's difficult then. Is it also true for PoolB, PoolC, ...?
What is being brought up there. If I try it, I don't have so many files on my hdd that contain this.
Else, you could try what the posters above said.

HI-TEC99

legendary

Activity: 2772

Merit: 2846

By default Bitcoin core names a wallet file as wallet.dat. If you remove the extension you are left with wallet. Install a hard drive searcher like Locate32 and search your hard drive for the word wallet, or whatever you named your wallet file as.

If you can't remember your wallet file's name try HCP's suggestion in the post above.

HCP

legendary

Activity: 2086

Merit: 4363

Quote from: SopaXT on May 30, 2017, 03:51:59 AM

Please clarify, what do you need?
Where is your wallet file, and what do you want to do with it exactly - the last post is somewhat confusing.

Put simply... OP had a "wallet.dat"... They removed the .dat extension for "security reasons" and now can't find the file on their computer. The were hoping someone might be able to give them a clue as to some sort of unique identifier within the wallet file that they could try running a searching on...

I am therefore assuming that their wallet file was named something like "nameUnrelatedToBitcoin.dat"... and they removed the .dat part... so they can't just search for "wallet" either Tongue

I'm thinking maybe the pywallet tool might be your best bet. It can scan drives looking for private keys... so may be able to find your wallet file(https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=38004.0)?

SopaXT

full member

Activity: 157

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Please clarify, what do you need?
Where is your wallet file, and what do you want to do with it exactly - the last post is somewhat confusing.

mackminer

sr. member

Activity: 348

Merit: 251

Thanks for this but PoolA seems to be bringing up all sorts of stuff that will make it difficult to test all files in the bitcoin client.....can you think or find something more unique by any chance?

Casy

member

Activity: 149

Merit: 22

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You could try search contents for "poolA", "poolB", ...
Or if you have added a label to a receive address, you could search file contents for that specific label.

mackminer

sr. member

Activity: 348

Merit: 251

When I say .dat I refer to the original bitcoin wallet program....
the extension was removed for security reasons

Is it a hex comparison tool or a hex search application or something?

Thanks.

Topic: How to find a wallet.dat file that had no extension (Read 812 times)