bitcoind -salvagewallet
Example with pywallet :
A Reddit user found a wallet.dat on an old USB drive labeled "Backup 2014". They used tips from an indexofwalletdat+better GitHub repo to extract the private keys and discovered 18.5 Bitcoin (worth over $500k at the time). indexofwalletdat+better
Modern wallets use a 12-to-24 word Recovery Seed (BIP39). Never store this in a file named "seed.txt" or "keys.pdf"—if it’s on a computer, it can be found. bitcoind -salvagewallet Example with pywallet : A Reddit