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so how should I search to find the exe file so the wallet I used opens up with that wallet.dat file I found. which also leads to new Question I dont remember my wallet from 2012 had a seed some one here maybe can answer that question better. but I found the wallet but say pathway dont exist. then I searched after clicking show hidden folders. i searched word bitcoin and found the wallet.dat plus whole 9,7gb!! in that folder in appdata roaming bitcoin. thought I saw wrong cause always thought a bc wallet took 30mb!! max not 9,7GB in some file I dont understand what they are. on another HDD from almost same year I dont find a wallet.dat file but some file called crypto/crypto URL and machine key ??
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If it's "wallet.dat" and you found it with "gigs of data" in the AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin folder... then it is most likely the wallet file from "Bitcoin Core".
first the video but this is if you only got the wallet.dat file I got whole 9,7gb but is the video legit can I try that without any damage to wallet.dat file ? and why does the youtube say I need 160Gb of space thought maybe he had millions of transactions I had max 4 transactions.
Firstly,
make a couple of copies of "wallet.dat"... this is your "golden ticket", so you don't want to lose it.
But the video looks like it follows the steps that I would personally do... ie. Download, then install
the latest version of Bitcoin Core... Run it once... once it starts "syncing", shut it down. Then replace the
new wallet.dat in the C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin directory that it will have created with one of the copies of your
old wallet.dat and restart it again.
It should "update" the wallet file to be compatible with the new version of Bitcoin Core, and you'll then be able to dump out the private keys etc. if you don't want to download and process 350+ gigs of blockchain data while syncing Bitcoin Core
NOTE: You will probably
NOT be able to see your transactions/bitcoin until Bitcoin Core has synced up to the date that you originally received the coins into your wallet. So, don't be surprised if there is balance of 0.00000000 BTC when you first open it!
Once you have the wallet loaded into Bitcoin Core, then your options are:
1. Let Bitcoin Core sync... could take hours/days... but is probably the "safest" way to recover your coins as you don't have to expose private keys etc.
or
2. Export your private keys from Bitcoin Core (using
dumpwallet which dumps ALL the private keys from the wallet file, or
dumpprivkey which outputs specific private keys for nominated addresses) and then import those private keys into a "light" or SPV wallet of your choice... ie.
Electrum
ps: why don't the pic show I put the link in middle of (
http://xxxxxxx) is that not the correct way ?
It's because you're a "newbie" account... you can't embed images until your account ranks up or you buy a copper membership
If you need any help, just ask.