Author

Topic: Lost bitcoins. (Read 1996 times)

newbie
Activity: 107
Merit: 0
December 25, 2017, 12:07:30 AM
#14
if you formatted it twice and have been using the drive
there is little to no chance of recovering the data with conventional methods
although,there is a very high chance to recover data if you take your HDD to a TRUSTED speicalised recovery service
or ANB Smiley they manage to recover data that has been rewritten up to 6-7 times
basically: the chances that you have been using bitcoin core wallet are very high,back in 2009 there were not many options
so what to do: get a list of files,write them down,take your hard drive to a specialised data recovery shop,pray that ur files are still recoverable

Hey Zend7,
Sorry to bump an old thread, and Merry Christmas mate!
You said " take HDD to specialized Recovery Service Provider or ANB"

Who is ANB? Google gave random results lol

Thanks for the help!!
sr. member
Activity: 504
Merit: 250
June 15, 2017, 03:00:51 AM
#13
Your wallet must have been Bitcoin core most likely since you say you bought the coins in 2010. It uses a "wallet.dat" name to the wallet but since you renamed it only you know the name of it. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do if you have formatted your PC twice and you used your PC daily. Even the FBI,CIA or NSA cannot help you in this scenario. I don't want to sound like the negative person here but I am only being realistic. Chances of you recovering the wallet with 20 coins are 0.

Totally disagree with you. Just because you said chances are 0. There are some chances but the costs are damn high. Even a hard drive who was in a river for 2 years can be recovered nowadays.

So about a cold drive with some bitcoins.. Even more, the costs are too damn high and risky for recovering, I sent you by pm some usefull links of people who can actually help you out. But costs can be up to 1000 usd at least.

Thinking at the fact that you have 20 bitcoins in your wallet I think that you can take a risk. Try to find some one on dark web not on bitcointalk
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 501
Hackers please hack me .... if you can :)
June 15, 2017, 01:50:32 AM
#12
Your wallet must have been Bitcoin core most likely since you say you bought the coins in 2010. It uses a "wallet.dat" name to the wallet but since you renamed it only you know the name of it. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do if you have formatted your PC twice and you used your PC daily. Even the FBI,CIA or NSA cannot help you in this scenario. I don't want to sound like the negative person here but I am only being realistic. Chances of you recovering the wallet with 20 coins are 0.
newbie
Activity: 2
Merit: 0
June 14, 2017, 11:31:41 PM
#11
Your coins are probably gone, honestly.
Unless you know a FULLY TRUSTED expert who can somehow get data off of a formatted hard drive, nothing you can do. Don't trust anyone here by the way, they will undoubtedly try to scam you.
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
June 13, 2017, 01:38:41 AM
#10
As I know more often the hard disk in the format then the less likely the data can be lifted back by recuva
So I can not guarantee your coin coins can come back again
legendary
Activity: 2016
Merit: 1107
June 13, 2017, 12:05:02 AM
#9
if you formatted it twice and have been using the drive
there is little to no chance of recovering the data with conventional methods
although,there is a very high chance to recover data if you take your HDD to a TRUSTED speicalised recovery service
or ANB Smiley they manage to recover data that has been rewritten up to 6-7 times
basically: the chances that you have been using bitcoin core wallet are very high,back in 2009 there were not many options
so what to do: get a list of files,write them down,take your hard drive to a specialised data recovery shop,pray that ur files are still recoverable
legendary
Activity: 2772
Merit: 2846
June 12, 2017, 04:56:22 PM
#8
Did you have the quick format option checked when you formatted your drive, or did you do a full format? If you had the quick format option checked there might be a chance you could recover some coins yourself. If you did a full format I would pay a professional data recovery company to try recovering your coins.

Don't boot from that drive. If you continue running the installed operating system it might overwrite your wallet.dat data.

If you know how to use a hex editor you could try scanning your drive for this sequence of bytes: 01 03 6B 65 79 41 04.

That sequence often occurs in a wallet.dat file about 180 bytes before a private key. If you look forward 180 bytes and can find the byte sequence 04 20 then it's likely a private key is the next the thirty-two bytes.

If you find a private key you can change it to a common format by pasting the thirty-two bytes into an offline copy of this webpage.

https://www.bitaddress.org/

This is an example of the 32 bytes of a private key in notepad.

I have been doing some tinkering around, thinking about other people's wallet disasters, and believe I have come to the following conclusion...

If you have lost your wallet.dat for whatever reason (deleted it, formatted your drive, file corruption, etc.) it's possible that it may still be lurking on your computer.  If so, recovery is no longer purely theoretical.  With a little knowledge of what to search for, you can use a hex editor to potentially find usable remnants of your wallet.dat file and get back your bitcoins, even if the original file isn't fully recoverable.

So here goes...

If you can use a hex-editor to do a sector-by-sector search/edit on your entire hard drive, then search your entire hard drive for occurrences of the following byte sequence:

01 03 6B 65 79 41 04...........

the middle four of these bytes represent the string "keyA" in ASCII.

Each time this byte sequence occurs, a Bitcoin private key is probably stored nearby, about 180 bytes later.  The 32-byte private key is the only thing you need to recover your bitcoins!... as long as you find the right one(s).

Approximately 180 bytes after this sequence, you may find the byte sequence 04 20 (hex).  These two bytes seem to precede every private key (the 0x20 suggests a length of 32 bytes).  If you find this sequence, the thirty-two bytes that come after 04 20 are the private key representing a Bitcoin address and might be the private key that recovers some of your lost bitcoins!  Your wallet will have numerous private keys (at least one hundred, due to the pre-allocation of keys)... get as many as you can find.  Carefully search the sectors adjacent to any sector containing the "keyA" sequence above.  Then yell for help!  (But don't share the private keys in public, unless you want to give away your wallet.)

An example of a hex editor that can scan an entire disk volume for specific byte sequences for Windows is WinHex.  In WinHex, use Tools, Open Disk (F9), and choose the disk you want to scan.  Scanning a full disk can take hours.  WinHex must "run as administrator" to be able to scan a physical disk.  Someone please recommend a good way to do this in Linux, preferably with a known Live CD, if possible.  Also, any time you are scanning a disk for potentially lost data, you should NEVER boot the disk you're searching - always boot from another disk and install the target disk as secondary.
sr. member
Activity: 826
Merit: 250
June 12, 2017, 12:23:23 AM
#7
I remember my PC making them look like notepad files
I also remember renaming the wallet file as I was worried that somebody may hack my PC and steal the coins.
Is there anyway these coins can be traced or found on my hard drive?
Regards
David.
You try to remember wallet file? u need to remember it first what kind of wallet u using?
you said it looks notepad files or txt, so i thought u using web wallet
so make it more little search, you had formatted it twice, it still possible to recover but maybe only got 30-50%

sr. member
Activity: 560
Merit: 250
June 11, 2017, 12:30:00 PM
#6
If you format try this,personaly i have trying recovery files tools and this is working http://m.benchmark.pl/testy_i_recenzje/darmowe-programy-do-odzyskiwania-danych.html
legendary
Activity: 4256
Merit: 1313
June 11, 2017, 11:07:45 AM
#5
Right can anybody help me?

I bought some bitcoins back in 2010, a quite an early time. I know I have at least about 20 coins(actually there was probably a lot more), they were placed in a folder on my PC and I remember my PC making them look like notepad files. Since then my hardrive has been formatted maybe twice in total to be honest. I also remember renaming the wallet file as I was worried that somebody may hack my PC and steal the coins.

I tried recuva without look, there seems to be a lot of files which aren't accessible or corrupted.

Is there anyway these coins can be traced or found on my hard drive? I am willing to share 10% if anybody can find them.

Regards
David.

Formatted twice and not restored from a backup, correct?  Do you by chance have a backup anywhere?  How long ago was it formatted?  Has it been used a lot since?  The longer ago it was formatted and the more it was used decreases the chances of recovery. Are you still using it?

Some other options for scanning are mentioned here:
http://onbitcoin.com/2013/10/29/recover-lost-bitcoin-hard-drive-wallet/


sr. member
Activity: 321
Merit: 250
June 11, 2017, 10:16:37 AM
#4
Well I've tried searching for terms such as "bitcoin" etc etc, however I have not had any luck, if I am honest I don't totally know what I am looking for exactly can you provide any guidance?

Try to remember how you might have renamed the file. It should be a .dat file as far as I know.

Here's some basic info on where a wallet's files are usually stored: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
June 11, 2017, 10:11:19 AM
#3
Well I've tried searching for terms such as "bitcoin" etc etc, however I have not had any luck, if I am honest I don't totally know what I am looking for exactly can you provide any guidance?
sr. member
Activity: 321
Merit: 250
June 11, 2017, 10:06:33 AM
#2
Why don't you check every file manually? It's not wise to give 10% of 60 000$ or more without trying it out yourself.

Don't trust anyone who PMs you asking to help, they'll scam you. Only trust people with dark green trust, but always post what you're doing in this thread for safety.
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
June 11, 2017, 09:57:58 AM
#1
Right can anybody help me?

I bought some bitcoins back in 2010, a quite an early time. I know I have at least about 20 coins(actually there was probably a lot more), they were placed in a folder on my PC and I remember my PC making them look like notepad files. Since then my hardrive has been formatted maybe twice in total to be honest. I also remember renaming the wallet file as I was worried that somebody may hack my PC and steal the coins.

I tried recuva without look, there seems to be a lot of files which aren't accessible or corrupted.

Is there anyway these coins can be traced or found on my hard drive? I am willing to share 10% if anybody can find them.

Regards
David.
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