Bitcoin Forum

I purchased five Bitcoin sometime in February of 2011 just to see how this worked. Bitcoin was selling for about $1.00 US then. I’ve since reformatted my hard drive a few times but I did make backup copies of all my Bitcoin related files including wallet.dat file. I haven’t touch the files for almost two years. Now that my Bitcoin is worth something, I’m trying to get myself educated on this and get my five Bitcoin (if I still have them) somewhere that can see and confirm that I have them, use them, sell them, etc. I’ve downloaded the latest Bitcoin-Qt client 4.8.3 and block chain (this took two days). I have a Dwolla account, and an account with Mt.Gox. Now I’m trying to figure out how to put all of these things together. The first thing I’m trying to figure out is how to get my old wallet.dat file into the new Bitcoin-Qt client without messing anything up and possibly losing my Bitcoin (if I even have any). I’m not even sure what version of Bitcoin client I use when I started back in 2011. If someone could help with this, I would be most grateful. 

Locate your bitcoin client folder, probably  \your username\APPDATA\roaming\Bitcoin-qt or similar     and paste your wallet there
Wersion of your client is not relevant.
If you want to sell your bitcoins just transfer them from your wallet to your mtgox address.

That should help

\username\application data\bitcoin

in case you're on XP.

Thank you so much! I’ve located my new Bitcoin client folder and the new wallet.dat file (this obviously has no Bitcoin in it). Can I just delete this file and copy and paste the old wallet.dat file there? If it makes any difference, I’m on Windows 7.

If you are sure this wallet is empty you can delete it and paste your own wallet there.

Yup.