Old Walletdat Hot: __link__

Restart the software. It will likely trigger a "rescan." This can take several hours (or days) depending on your hardware. Phase 3: The Password Barrier

If the balance is life-changing (e.g., 50+ BTC), consider a reputable recovery service like ReWallet, which typically charges a percentage of recovered funds. Summary Checklist Found wallet.dat file. Created 3+ backups on separate drives. old walletdat hot

A wallet.dat file is the heart of the (formerly Bitcoin-Qt) client. Unlike modern wallets that use a 12 or 24-word seed phrase (BIP39), early Bitcoin wallets stored your private keys, transaction history, and address book in this single Berkeley DB database file. Restart the software

You don't need the private key just to see the balance. You can use tools like Pywallet to dump the public addresses contained within the file without needing a password. Step 2: Use a Blockchain Explorer Summary Checklist Found wallet