Did wallet.dat files change over time?

[maxmint]

I have an old wallet.dat from 2011 and tried to open it with my current 0.8 bitcoin-qt client. I did not get any errors, but the wallet does not contain any transcation or addresses. I'm pretty sure there must be some in this wallet file.

Could it be that the wallet.dat file change over time so that the current client is unable to read it?

[vm1990]

as far as i know the wallet.dat file hasnt changed at all it only changes if you add new addresses
are you copying it to the right place? C:\users\your username\appdata\roaming\bitcoin
also i think it only works if theres 1 wallet.dat file there

[maxmint]

as far as i know the wallet.dat file hasnt changed at all it only changes if you add new addresses
are you copying it to the right place? C:\users\your username\appdata\roaming\bitcoin
also i think it only works if theres 1 wallet.dat file there

Thanks for the tip. I just checked and it's definitely at the right location.
Maybe I backed up an empty wallet without any transactions...

[BookLover]

Try running it with the "rescan" option.

[opticbit]

take a look at the wallet in plain text.

[Raoul Duke]

Go to the folder where your wallet.dat is and insert

Code:

rescan=1

in the bitcoin.conf file that is inside that same folder. If there is no file named bitcoin.conf, create one yourself

Start bitcoin-qt as you usually do and wait for it to do it's thing.

If you get your bitcoins back, you can donate some to me at: 1PKyq6aMKcCwn8cmb9Jc5SkNydLsQb5n7K

Don't forget to remove the rescan=1 line from the bitcoin.conf file when you finish.

[Stephen Gornick]

Could it be that the wallet.dat file change over time so that the current client is unable to read it?

The newer clients (v0.7 and higher) are less ignorant of bad data in the wallet.dat.     Are you getting a message unable to open wallet.dat?

You could try joric's pywallet and see if it can get more out of it than Bitcoin-Qt can.