<p>So I had to fire up the OS on the old HD and run an older version of Bitcoin code - lo and behold, no problems with the wallet at all. Transferred balance to another address, installed new Bitcoin core and generated a new wallet.dat.</p>

<p>None of this fills me with confidence for long term storage of my coins!!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-12T23:57:25.623Z
2014-11-12T23:57:25.623Z
Gary
<p>I recently installed a new version of Windows on a new HDD, but I'm having problems getting my old wallet.dat to work.</p>

<p>Here's what I've done:</p>

<ul>
<li>Install latest Bitcoin Core.</li>
<li>Copied over the blocks and chainstate folders from the old hard drive.</li>
<li>Run Bitcoin Core and allowed it to sync up to date.</li>
<li>Closed Bitcoin Core</li>
<li>Removed Wallet.dat from my roaming\Bitcoin folder</li>
<li>Copied Wallet.dat from old HDD to the roaming\Bitcoin folder</li>
<li>Run Bitcoin Core with '-rescan' parameter.</li>
</ul>

<p>When I run the software, I get the following message:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Warning: Wallet.dat corrupt, data salvaged! Original wallet.dat saved as wallet.{timestamp}.bak in C:\blah\de\blah</p>
</blockquote>

<p>There's nothing wrong with the old HDD, or the previous wallet. In fact I <em>could</em> boot up the previous Windows install, but it's a ballache for various reasons involving symlinks and other such non-standard tomfoolary.</p>

<p>On subsequent runs, I receive the following message:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Warning: error reading wallet.dat! All keys read correctly but transaction data or address book entries might be missing or incorrect.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>So now I can see my coins in the wallet, and my transaction history - it looks like it's worked, except I can't spend any of the coins. I get a message stating:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The transaction was rejected! This might happen if some of the coins in your wallet were already spent, such as if yuo used a copy of wallet.dat and coins were spent in the copy but not marked as spent here.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I've not made any use of the wallet since installing my new version of Windows, it's all up to date on the old HDD... so I can't see how it would be listing coins that have already been spent... but the start up message suggests that tansactions are missing from my history, so perhaps I have less than I think?</p>

<p>Can anyone shed light onto why this process hasn't worked?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-31T15:10:26.800Z
Could you try looking at one of your balances on a block explorer like blockchain.info? It sounds like either the wallet changed without your knowledge, or your coins were spent without your knowledge.
Nick ODell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-31T15:25:24.500Z
Not sure I really understand how to do that... How do I get the balance addresses from the software, and wouldn't the balance be split across multiple addresses?
Gary
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-31T15:26:44.793Z
Also, that doesn't explain the 'corruption' messages.
Gary
<bitcoin-core><wallet.dat><windows><wallet-recovery>
Transaction was rejected - Bitcoin QT, recovered wallet.dat
Gary
# Transaction was rejected - Bitcoin QT, recovered wallet.dat

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-10-31)

I recently installed a new version of Windows on a new HDD, but I'm having problems getting my old wallet.dat to work.

Here's what I've done:

* Install latest Bitcoin Core.
* Copied over the blocks and chainstate folders from the old hard drive.
* Run Bitcoin Core and allowed it to sync up to date.
* Closed Bitcoin Core
* Removed Wallet.dat from my roaming\Bitcoin folder
* Copied Wallet.dat from old HDD to the roaming\Bitcoin folder
* Run Bitcoin Core with '-rescan' parameter.

When I run the software, I get the following message:

> Warning: Wallet.dat corrupt, data salvaged! Original wallet.dat saved as wallet.{timestamp}.bak in C:\blah\de\blah

There's nothing wrong with the old HDD, or the previous wallet. In fact I *could* boot up the previous Windows install, but it's a ballache for various reasons involving symlinks and other such non-standard tomfoolary.

On subsequent runs, I receive the following message:

> Warning: error reading wallet.dat! All keys read correctly but transaction data or address book entries might be missing or incorrect.

So now I can see my coins in the wallet, and my transaction history - it looks like it's worked, except I can't spend any of the coins. I get a message stating:

> The transaction was rejected! This might happen if some of the coins in your wallet were already spent, such as if yuo used a copy of wallet.dat and coins were spent in the copy but not marked as spent here.

I've not made any use of the wallet since installing my new version of Windows, it's all up to date on the old HDD... so I can't see how it would be listing coins that have already been spent... but the start up message suggests that tansactions are missing from my history, so perhaps I have less than I think?

Can anyone shed light onto why this process hasn't worked?

Thanks.

**Tags:** bitcoin-core, wallet.dat, windows, wallet-recovery

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Could you try looking at one of your balances on a block explorer like blockchain.info? It sounds like either the wallet changed without your knowledge, or your coins were spent without your knowledge.  
> **username_0**: Not sure I really understand how to do that... How do I get the balance addresses from the software, and wouldn't the balance be split across multiple addresses?  
> **username_0**: Also, that doesn't explain the 'corruption' messages.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2014-11-12. Score: 0 | Accepted answer

So I had to fire up the OS on the old HD and run an older version of Bitcoin code - lo and behold, no problems with the wallet at all. Transferred balance to another address, installed new Bitcoin core and generated a new wallet.dat.

None of this fills me with confidence for long term storage of my coins!!


---

