Accessing coins in old wallet (0.3.19)

[kwizzle]

Hi, I have been out of the bitcoin loop for a while and recently booted up my old hard drive which had a few coins on it.  

My client is 0.3.19 and it is obviously not up to date on the current blockchain.  I expected it to start downloading blocks but it has 0 connections currently.

How can I access my coins?  Do I need to somehow get my old client to get up to date and then transfer the coins to a newer wallet, or can I throw my wallet.dat file into a newer version of the wallet program?

If the latter case is possible, then which client can I use?  I see the following on the about page: http://imgur.com/Dq9UpLv

I know there is something called bitcoin core, is that what I have?

Thank you for any help, it's greatly appreciated!


Edit: I was able to make a backup wallet by doing the following in 2 different command prompts:

bitcoin.exe -server -rpcpassword=temporary
bitcoin-cli.exe -rpcpassword=temporary backupwallet "backupwallet.dat"

I had to get bitcoin-cli.exe from version 12.0 and place it in the daemon folder because using bitcoind was giving me a dll error

[achow101]

Holy crap that is super old and outdated software. It is expected that it shouldn't be able to connect because Bitcoin's method of discovering peers has changed since 0.3.19.

Download and install Bitcoin Core 0.12.1 from https://bitcoin.org/en/download. Bitcoin Core *may* be able to read the wallet file (I think it should since not too much has changed in the wallet file). You probably have to run Bitcoin Core with the -upgradewallet option.

[cr1776]

And backup your wallet.dat file in a few places before doing anything.

[siameze]

If neither of suggestions above work one very tedious solution may be to dump all your private keys and then reimport them using the newer wallet software. Might be more efficient to write a script if you go this route.

[kwizzle]

Bitcoin Core *may* be able to read the wallet file (I think it should since not too much has changed in the wallet file). You probably have to run Bitcoin Core with the -upgradewallet option.

I heard that I cannot just copy my wallet.dat and that I have to specifically make a backup somehow, do you have any idea of the validity of that claim?

Let's say I just take my old wallet.dat without specifically making a backup (whatever that means) and throw it in Bitcoin core 0.12.19 and use the upgrade wallet option, will that risk my coins if the wallet cannot be read?

[dex1]

Bitcoin Core *may* be able to read the wallet file (I think it should since not too much has changed in the wallet file). You probably have to run Bitcoin Core with the -upgradewallet option.

I heard that I cannot just copy my wallet.dat and that I have to specifically make a backup somehow, do you have any idea of the validity of that claim?

Let's say I just take my old wallet.dat without specifically making a backup (whatever that means) and throw it in Bitcoin core 0.12.19 and use the upgrade wallet option, will that risk my coins if the wallet cannot be read?

That means you copy your old wallet.dat file to a number of places (like usb sticks, other computers, you name it) to make sure that when you do what you are about to do you will not lose your private keys that are in your old wallet.dat. So the only risk would be when you don't make a backup.

[achow101]

Bitcoin Core *may* be able to read the wallet file (I think it should since not too much has changed in the wallet file). You probably have to run Bitcoin Core with the -upgradewallet option.

I heard that I cannot just copy my wallet.dat and that I have to specifically make a backup somehow, do you have any idea of the validity of that claim?

Let's say I just take my old wallet.dat without specifically making a backup (whatever that means) and throw it in Bitcoin core 0.12.19 and use the upgrade wallet option, will that risk my coins if the wallet cannot be read?

Possibly. You should make a backup anyways. To backup, just make a copy of the wallet file and put it in a safe location.