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So about 3 months back I ordered $100 in BTC from Coinbase and transfered those coins to a wallet on my desktop. Then for some reason my laptop wouldn't boot into windows anymore. It just shows a black screen. I recently got a macbook, and I've tried hooking the hard drive up to the mac and also another desktop PC but I can navigate into the user profile on the hard because it was password protected. Is there anyway I can get passed this to recover the wallet.dat file? Anything would help I would hate to see this money go to waste.
Yes, you can access your windows harddrive (all your files) using a linux live cd or live usb. This includes inside your user files.
These are the steps:
1. Get a usb drive (cost about $5 to $10 in a store)
2. Download http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ its a program that puts linux on usb
3. Select a distribution. Pick an easy one with graphical interface. For example, you could take the Ubuntu iso. Prepare for a short learning curve on the graphics interface, it is a little different from windows
4. Select your usb drive
5. Press ok. The program will now start downloading the linux, after that it will install it to the usb.
6. Restart your PC.
7. (If you are lucky you can skip this step) Press F12 or F2, you will go into a program called BIOS. Its a boring text program where you can add boot order
set to USB boot first.8. Select Live CD. Try ubuntu without installing
9. You will then see a screen like this
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P926BEXnarQ/UlEzEUtwChI/AAAAAAAAiwk/72MltC20ho0/s1600/UEFI_Ubuntu_LiveMedia_Desktop.jpg
press on the file archive. Go to your disk drive. Into C:\Users\Yourname\... (wherever you keep your wallet). Copy it into the usb
10. finished, you have your wallet file on the usb
