thanks for the feedback. I believe that I now have the correct password but when I try to restore the wallet.dat at blockchain.info using an empty blockchain.info wallet's restore backup option I get an
error message stating "warning! data may have changed but cannot sync as you have unsaved keys." Is there another way to restore an old wallet.dat , unsaved keys? if you have any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated. The size of the wallet.dat in question is 96kb and I am fairly certain that the btc are there. Would downloading the whole blockchain and utilizing bitcoin core bring better results? I was going to try that next but the size of the thing turned me sour. I gave up for a while and now I am at it again. If I find out that I have been trying to restore a wallet.dat with no balance I will not only be a bitcoin maniac, I will be a bitcoin fool. any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The first thing you should do is try to find out which address that holds the money in your wallet.dat file. You can use pywallet dump to achieve that.
1. Download and install python for windows (
http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.2/python-2.7.2.msi )
2. Download pywallet.py from
https://github.com/joric/pywallet 3. Start a windows command prompt ('cmd'), and use:
pywallet.py --dumpwallet > mywallet.txt
to put the information into a file named mywallet.txt
4. Open mywallet.txt and find an address with a 'label' line, that would be the address that holds the money
5. Open the address in blockchain.info to know how much the money in that address
https://blockchain.info/address/your_btc_addrThen try to import your wallet.dat into blockchain.info using this link
https://blockchain.info/wallet/import-wallet