Back in 2012-2014, I downloaded Bitcoin Core, and was provided a wallet address. I took this address and went around to different faucets to collect bitcoin. I downloaded Multibit at some point, and loaded the wallet there. I NEVER SET A PASSWORD. I am 1,000,000,000% sure I did not set a password. This was also before seeds of course.

Later on I bought a new computer, and copied the wallet files over, thinking if/when I got back into Bitcoin, I could just restore the wallet and carry on. Boy was I wrong. Everything is asking for a password now, and nothing will load without one.

This is what I have:

FILES:

wallet.dat
multibit-xxxxxxxxxxxxx.wallet
multibit-xxxxxxxxxxxxx.info
multibit.wallet
multibit.key
multibit.info

Plus all the install files. About the only thing I don't have from 2014 are the blocks, which I'm downloading from the servers now.

I have tried following the steps to move the wallet into Electrum, but nothing seems to work.

I've tried installing Bitcoin Core again, but there's no option to open a wallet file from inside the GUI. I went into the directory and replaced the wallet.dat file with mine and restarted Bitcoin Core, but nothing changed. There are no .wallet or .key files to replace.

I'm suuuuper confused as to what I should do? Can anyone explain to me how to fix this? Preferably like I'm five?

Finally got access to my bitcoin wallet. Thanks everyone for the help!

Here's the accompanying thread where the bulk of my discoveries were made, for any future Google searchers.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5330885.0

Hey all.

I got into bitcoin back in the early days of 2012 through 2014, and had set up a wallet through Multibit. The problem I'm having is that although I have all the files related to the wallet, I'm not sure how to get access to it. This was before seeds were required, and I never set a password for the .dat file. The problem is, when I last tried to use a program to open the wallet, it asked me for seed words, and wouldn't let me access it. I'm currently trying another wallet called Electrum, but I'm not having any success there either, although for different reasons. I'm just a little confused as to what they want me to enter in the box to restore a wallet. (It mentions private keys, but I'm following the instructions on their website, and I'm not seeing what they show)

Can anyone provide some advice? Maybe a noob friendly wallet that's easy to load Multibit wallets from?

Thanks for the help! I thought these bitcoins were lost forever. Glad to see that pessimistic view was wrong. Now I just need to determine what I'm gonna do with them.