I lost my keys :( - don't be like me.

You might have read some of my blog posts on the importance of keeping your private keys safe. I wrote a detailed explanation of what they are here: understanding Hive keys. One of my main recommendations is to keep your keys off your computer.

How to keep your HIVE keys safe
As you might have seen in another video I made on how to use Trust Wallet, I'm a firm believer that you should not keep your keys stored on your computer. As soon as you receive your keys, you should make two copies:
One digital copy on a cold device (one that is not connected to the internet). I use a text file on a simple USB stick like this one and keep it in a fire-proof safe.
Another copy should be in a different location, ideally in a non-digital format like good old pen and paper.

Here is my first copy:

As recommended, they are not stored on any device, only nice and protected inside a fire-proof safe.

Nothing could go wrong, right?

Wrong.

My USB stick is still with me, but became severely corrupted and unable to mount on any computer.

The second problem is I didn't write down the second copy in good ol' low tech pen & paper because I was going to to it later when I found a typewriter to type my keys and passwords to avoid mistakes 😔.

Thanks Murphy.

I tried repairing via Terminal using diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk6s2
I tried mounting in read-only mode using sudo mkdir -p /Volumes/mount sudo mount -t hfs -o rdonly /dev/disk6s2 /Volumes/mount

I eventually got a invalid B-tree node size error which menas that the core filesystem structure (the catalog B-tree, which stores file/folder records) is corrupted in a way that fsck_hfs cannot fix. This is why the system won’t mount it — even read-only.

So I then tried PhotoRec to scan the raw partition for files.

This was awesome, because I felt like a hacker, lol (j/k) and also gave me a bit of hope as it did recover some of my files on the drive. Unfortunately, they were not the text files I was looking for.

So, where am I at?

I still have all my keys for this account, so there's no problem there, but I don't have the master password for my business accounts:

@recording-box
@yellowcherry
@hivefunded

So I wouldn't be able to change my keys. I do have them set to a recovery account, so I could recover them if they ever become compromised, but I think I'm going to move my funds out of those wallets and into new wallet instead.
I still have the keys in @keychain on several devices, so I will still be able to post from them and export them to new devices, but I won't hold funds there for security reasons.

I've also written down my keys in a small notebook which I keep in my fire-proof safe that is bolted to the ground.

I guess you can say I've learned my lesson in self-custody.