I downloaded the blockchain from the above bitcoinchart site after backing up my wallet.dat and then ran bitcoin again. It started updating as soon as I started it and now I'm at the correct number. So that works, thanks for the advice! When should I expect my bitcoins to show up in my wallet? I sent them a few days ago but it never showed up because the blockchain was out of date (I presume). Now they should show up right?
They should show as soon as you have the block they appear in downloaded. Check the site below with your address to see if they were sent to you or the address you sent from or one of the various other methods used there to track the coins.
http://blockexplorer.com/I found it on there and it's correct but it still hasn't appeared in my wallet. Is there any way to fix this?
If you have sent Bitcoins to your wallet address (and it really is your address, check in your bitcoin address book that it is there and correct), and Bitcoin has updated to the most recent block, then I would suggest closing and restarting Bitcoin with the -rescan command line option, which will rescan the blockchain for any missing transactions that should show in your wallet.
Block downloading will go much faster if you configure port forwarding in your router or internet gateway device to forward tcp port 8333 to your Bitcoin computer - instead of eight connections, you will have dozens.