Bitcoin QT wallet not showing bitcoins since transferring it to new computer!HLP

[Ltdsaint]

My old laptop just died, but I recovered the hardrive and bought a new one. Since then I have moved my old wallet file onto my new computer but after downloading the blockchain my balance is still at zero! I think I know my old private key or address code. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

[Wulfcastle]

My old laptop just died, but I recovered the hardrive and bought a new one. Since then I have moved my old wallet file onto my new computer but after downloading the blockchain my balance is still at zero! I think I know my old private key or address code. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

Did you move your original wallet.dat file to your new hard drive?

[Muhammed Zakir]

Did you move the files to $HOME/.bitcoin/(Linux), $HOME/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/(Mac), %APPDATA%\Bitcoin\(Windows) ? If not, do it and then re-open Bitcoin-Qt.

  ~~MZ~~

[Ltdsaint]

My old laptop just died, but I recovered the hardrive and bought a new one. Since then I have moved my old wallet file onto my new computer but after downloading the blockchain my balance is still at zero! I think I know my old private key or address code. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

Did you move your original wallet.dat file to your new hard drive?

Yes and it is still showing a balance of zero!!?!

[ncsupanda]

My old laptop just died, but I recovered the hardrive and bought a new one. Since then I have moved my old wallet file onto my new computer but after downloading the blockchain my balance is still at zero! I think I know my old private key or address code. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

Did you move your original wallet.dat file to your new hard drive?

Yes and it is still showing a balance of zero!!?!

Did you download the blockchain BEFORE putting the new wallet in? If so, you may want to open the wallet using -rescan so that it rescans the blockchain.

[torusJKL]

You should always make a backup of your wallet.dat and store it on a different harddrive or even better some cloud storage service.
Bitcoin Core creates 100 addresses when it creates the wallet everytime you use one it will create a new one.
Because the creation of those addesses is random an old backup will not include addresses that where created after the backup. Thus don't forget to make new backups from time to time (depends on your usage)

If you don't want to create backups use a wallet that support deterministic addresses e.g. electrum.

[cr1776]

You should always make a backup of your wallet.dat and store it on a different harddrive or even better some cloud storage service.
...

If you do use some cloud storage service make sure that you have it password protected and perhaps even that wallet in a password protected encrypted image. (But better to just not do it.)

[Newar]

Everything you put on the "cloud" consider it public information for other people to see.

Yesterday it was nudie shots from the beach, tomorrow it will be wallet.dats. Sure a password will put a timing fuse on it. Considering the majority of passwords in use that fuse won't be that long though. So, no, don't put your encrypted wallet.dat on the cloud. Put it on different types of storage media rather. CD, DVD, different HDDs, USB if you must. Things _you_ control.

[torusJKL]

If you do not want to upload then make sure that you have your backups in multiple physical locations so that if your apartment would be destroyed by e.g. earthquake, water or fire you would not loose all your backups.