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Hardware · Unexpected wipe
My hardware wallet wiped itself: what happened and what can be recovered
You switch the device on and it asks you to set it up as new, or it shows no accounts. Before anything else: don’t set it up. Setting it up again genuinely erases what may still be there.
The causes, from most to least frequent
- The PIN attempts ran out. Someone — you, a child, a bag pressing buttons — tried codes until the device wiped itself for safety.
- It isn’t wiped: it is on another account or another passphrase. If you used an extra password, not typing it makes the device show you a different, empty wallet. It is the cause that causes the most panic, and it is in the «25th word».
- The desktop app can’t see the accounts even though the device is fine. Try another computer or reinstall the app before assuming anything.
- A firmware update that required reconfiguration. See I updated the firmware and lost access.
- It isn’t your device: identical devices are easily mixed up in a household with several.
The second cause solves the most cases and is the least known. If you ever enabled an extra password, the device doesn’t warn you it is missing: it simply opens a different wallet. Try entering it before writing anything off.
What to do before touching anything
- Don’t set the device up as new. It is the one genuinely irreversible thing you can do right now.
- Look for your paper recovery phrase. If it turns up, the problem is solved whatever the cause.
- Try the device on another computer, with a freshly installed official app.
- If you used an extra password, try typing it.
- Check on an explorer whether your addresses still hold a balance: that tells you whether the money is there or moved.
If the explorer shows the money left on a specific date you don’t recognise, stop investigating the device: that isn’t a wipe, it is a theft, and the priority becomes protecting what remains. Read it in what to do if you think your phrase is compromised.
If the device really did wipe
Then it all depends on the phrase. With it, you set the device up again and recover exactly the same wallet. Without it, there is no way out: the wipe is precisely what stops anyone, you included, getting in without the phrase.