Thanks for all the replies!

Mt. Gox has been rated as the biggest bitcoin exchange, but they have been having some serious issues lately. There are LOTS of places where one can buy bitcoin.
>What exchange(s) do you use?
>Has your experience been good?
>What kind of fees are you paying?
>Do you have to supply ID, or is it relatively anonymous?
>How quickly are your purchases verified?

The next question is how do I view my private key? I exported it from MultiBit, but don't know how to view it so I can paste it into the Qt console.

Where is the import function in Bitcoin-Qt? I cannot find anything remotely resembling an option to import.

The answer to my question of how to redeem the voucher:
Must register with that site. Then a redeem voucher option becomes available.

Hello,
I am just getting started with bitcoin. I have Bitcoin-Qt installed and synced, but with no wallet or BTC, and because Blockchain.info's backup works with Multibit, I also have Multibit installed with my old wallet containing a miniscule amount of BTC.

One of my bookmarked sites is http://dailybitcoins.org/, which has just given me my first redeemable voucher worth a whopping 0.00003 BTC, and a code which looks like an address.

My questions are:
1) How do I redeem the voucher? I can't figure out how to request the BTC using Multibit - or Qt.
2) With no import feature in Bitcoin-Qt, how do I import my wallet into Qt?

Thanks for being gentle. I was thinking more like "dumb a$$".

I couldn't put the drive into another PC, but I did run File Scavenger. It was only able to find the same 88kb file (compared to a freshly-installed file size of 80kb) that I already had found and used to replace my Qt wallet, so I didn't buy it to access that file. At this point the only remaining question is why the wallet's file size is 8kb larger than a freshly-installed wallet, but the wallet appears empty - nothing. Not even my original address, which I would think would show up. If anybody has an explanation for that, I'm curious, but I think that bitcoin is gone for good...     Ah, well, live and learn - I don't tend to make the same mistakes twice...

No luck with using BtToMt as per previous post.

I've copied and pasted the old wallet.dat into the same location on my new computer as I found it on the old computer. Bitcoin Qt does not show my info, and I see no option to import anything (I've saved a 2nd copy on my desktop and have yet another copy on a flash drive - don't want to lose this puppy again!).

I must be missing something, but don't know what it is...

edit
OK. Wait. What I did today, was in my initial recovery attempt, before I knew to look in AppData, I reinstalled Bitcoin Qt. I think I screwed myself with that. That's why the wallet looks empty - because it is. Is there a way to recover the file that was there before I reinstalled Bitcoin Qt?

How bad is my karma if I messed myself up moments before retrieving the file I needed..... 

I think this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=189628.0  answers my question. Working on it...

The import options are .key .json and .aes.json

It was there!!!!!     How do it get it into Multibit?

Hello again,
I may have great news, but I need your help to figure it out. I had a brain fart before - I didn't delete the user account on my old computer, but I /did/ uninstall most of the programs (including Bitcoin Qt), and lowered the user privileges. I haven't accessed the user in a couple of months (which is why I thought I'd deleted it), so most of the stuff I uninstalled is pretty intact, I think. I reinstated Admin privileges and ran Recuva, which found 21 .dat files. None of the .dat files are identified as a wallet, so I don't know if they're useful. Do I have a chance of claiming my lost bitcoins, or are these dat files going to be useless? How do I figure it out?

Thank you for explaining this.

Thank you cocqui 33, I have added that link to my Evernote for permanent reference.

OK, so I have a follow on question: when bitcoin gets lost like that, or when it gets seized by a government, as recently happened in the news, like this: https://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX, what happens to it in the long run? Is it forever out of circulation?

The reason I switched to MultiBit is because I got a new computer. I'd actually forgotten about the bitcoin because it was static. I've got my Qt login, but never exported the .dat file. :-(   Guess I'm screwed. Funny because I'm really good about doing backups, generally speaking. I just never thought to back up the wallet because I guess I never realized I couldn't just log in with my identifying info and access the bitcoin. I'm lucky it wasn't a large amount of money.

What was truly astounding to me, however, when I logged on yesterday to get back up to speed with bitcoin, was that the value of what I'd been given had quadrupled! So even though I lost basically everything, I'm going to start over, and this time I know to back up the wallet.

Hello,

Back in April, I was given a small amount of bitcoin as a gift. I got myself a wallet at blockchain.info, and set up the Bitcoin Qt wallet on my computer. I experimented with sending bitcoin by sending some to myself, and I can see this transaction when I log in to blockchain.info.

Here's my question: I left my bitcoin alone for several months, and now I'm using Multibit instead of Bitcoin Qt. Multibit only shows the pittance I left behind when I made the experimental transfer, which shows up on blockchain.info as "unspent output". How can I get this "unspent output" back into my wallet?

No, I just use the standalone Privoxy proxy. So it's running, but I guess -qt isn't running through it...?

Hi Kluge,

Thanks for the suggestions. It was the proxy setting. I had checked it, because I use a proxy, and that's what was blocking me. I unchecked >Connect through SOCKS proxy, and I've got my connection back! Woo-hoo!

Can you explain to me why checking the proxy box broke my connection?

Hello everyone, I'm spoonbender. New to bitcoin, and excited to learn all about it!

Hello,

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the desktop bitcoin client. It started syncing. From the little I knew, I understood it might take quite some time, so I left my laptop open when I went to bed that night. In the morning I had an error message (didn't write it down, sorry), and my wallet was no longer syncing. I haven't been able to get it to sync - or even try to sync since. I've even uninstalled and re-installed it but it just sits there, disconnected. My firewall is not blocking. How can I get my connection to re-activate?