Update Bitcoin-qt = lost coins

[BlackSheep]

I have recently come back to bitcoin due to recent events.

I was mining in slush's pool a few years back and racked up 13 BTC.

http://blockchain.info/address/e53d7762e8cf2989c24e79d5bcf6faa50cb4f06d

However, upon coming back I found that the client I was using would not sync. So I updated it and I no longer had the address or bitcoins.

I was using a client that looked like this and the address I entered was in that red box. (on my client not the picture).

http://bitcoinintro.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/OfficialBitcoinClientMainScreen.png

Any ideas on what might of happened?

Does a software update overwrite your wallet.dat?

Does a software uninstall delete your wallet.dat?

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[Razick]

Wallet.dat doesn't actually "contain" the coins, wallet.dat stores the private keys that own the coins. There are a few possibilities:

1. Wallet.dat was deleted and recreated (I don't know why this would happen). Corrupted maybe?
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2. You were hacked and they were stolen. In that case check your address(es) on blockchain.info
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3. They keys in your wallet were somehow lost (I don't know why this would happen either).

If you have the private keys they can be redeemed on Mt.Gox, Blockchain.info, or (I think) Armory.

EDIT: It looks like I misunderstood your post, and obviously #2 is not an option. Since I assume you didn't delete the Bitcoin folder in %AppData% (right?), the update must have overwritten it.  I hope I'm wrong!

[grue]

1. make a backup of your %appdata%\bitcoin\ directory
2. install latest version of bitcoin (0.8.1)
3. delete everything in %appdata%\bitcoin\ except for wallet.dat
4. wait for the blockchain to sync

if you don't see any coins, check all your addresses on https://blockexplorer.com/ to see if they contain any balance.