Old PC with 200 Litecoins; safest way to restore?

I have an old PC that I used back in 2014 for mining LTC. I just set it up again to check what was on there and my wallet has over 200 coins in it. The PC is fully working but the wallet software is very old; it is running Version 0.8.6.1-Beta. I have not connected the PC back to the Internet.

My question is; what is the safest way to bring the wallet back online?

Should I just let this old wallet download the latest blockchain and then use SEND to transfer the funds to a newer wallet / hardware wallet?

I was able to do a backup of the wallet right from within the wallet program. I read I can just install the latest version on another PC and transfer the wallet.dat into the correct folder. However, the post I read says I should make sure the old wallet has the latest blockchain update PRIOR to backing up the wallet.dat. Does anyone know if this is a requirement or can I just copy the backup DAT file to the new PC and open the wallet from there without having to have the old wallet download then entire blockchain first? I am hesitant to connect this old PC/Wallet to the internet for fear it might corrupt since it’s so old but I really just don’t know what would happen. With 200+ coins I’d rather not lose them!

Any suggestions on the best way to proceed?

Thanks

  • Adam

Not an expert here, but your computer was online before, so if the coins are still there let’s assume it’s safe environment. I would update the client, download the ledger and sync, than I will create other safer wallet and send the coins from the PC, that’s easiest to do instead of looking complicated exercises which will confuse you :slight_smile:

as long as you have your backup then just download it and place your backup in your appdata folder under Roaming/Litecoin in Windows in place of the default wallet.dat file and rename it wallet.dat…then restart litecoin…its very simple
and as long as you have your backup you can restore to multiple pcs if you want…just download litecoin and place your backup in the app data folder and rename it…first wallet to spend the coins gets them and all other wallets will sync accordingly too if you were to do that
also if you have your private key you can type importprivatekey (private key) after unlocking the wallet by typing walletpassphrase (passphrase) 1000 (where 1000 is the number of seconds you want the wallet unlocked for)…under console to any wallet as well

Great. That worked perfectly. I just copied my Wallet.dat into the users/username/appdata/roaming/litecoin/ folder and launch the latest version of the Litecoin wallet. It had all my coins and I was able to easily send them to my new hardware wallet.

Thanks!

Hi there
A question if I may
Why would I get the result null when I enter my walletpassphrase into core console?
Im trying to consolidate a few wallets with import privkey
Cheers
Frank

NULL means “task complete”

you see that because your wallet is successfully unlocked so you can dump your private keys and sign transactions if you want to…type
walletlock
and you will see it again
meaning your wallet is now locked

Thankyou for that response, quite a relief!

Hi there bakd247

Could you please kindly advise

My Litecoins are not showing up in my wallet.
The wallet I have is: Litecoin QT Version V0.8.5.1 -beta

Other messages appearing in my wallet are:

‘Alert key compromised, upgrade required’
‘Wallet (out of sync)’
‘Recent transactions (out of sync)’

Do i need to upgrade if so, how to do this ??? Will need step by step guide.

Thanks

yes you need to download the latest version for your device at litecoin.org

Is it just download onto my computer and everything will show up ?

No other particulars i need to do ?

Do you have you wallet.dat file?
If so, store it at a safe location before changing or updating anything.

I’ve looked in the files i can’t locate any wallet.dat file.

i’ve downloaded the new latest version. balance is still zero, no coins are showing.

what else do you suggest i should do ?

Can you provide us with more information?

  • When did you last see the coins in your wallet?
  • What happened since then?

just download it and let it sync…

i have both the old version and the new version now.

how do i let it sync in ?

When i now try opening my old version wallet the following message comes up:

‘error opening block database’
'Do you want to rebuild the block database now?'
OK ABORT

click Ok and let it work, it will take some time depending on hardware.

is your problem fix already?