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Can you advise me on upgrading my wallet and bitcoin software. Are there files I should save before upgrading? what should I upgrade to? Other basic questions.

I have a number of bitcoin files in my block folder *.dat in a file folder created in 2008 (when I gave bitcoin mining a very short try, but freaked out with my PC nearly grinding to a halt). Not sure if this means I have any bitcoins. I have a wallet, that is showing zero bitcoins but isn't synchronised. The PC is running on windows 7. That last time I looked at my PC was in 2018, but I wasn't able to synchronise the files fully, but thought I would try again. My OLD PC is currently trying to "reindex" the blocks on the disk.

I am not the most techie person. Thanks.

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    Shut down the Bitcoin software, and make a backup of your wallet.dat file now. Your coins, if any, will be safe. Then update to the latest release (Bitcoin Core 0.20.1, see bitcoincore.org/en/download), and import the wallet.dat file. 0.8.1 is very old, and I wouldn't bother trying to reindex it left; just synchronize from scratch with new software. As long as you're using unsynchronized software it is expected that your balance shows as 0. Good luck! – Pieter Wuille Dec 3 '20 at 18:41
  • Thank you. Should I download bitcoin core v 0.20.1 to my newer (but not brand new PC) where space might be an issue, or just download to the old PC that is running on xxx. Also, I have a "LOG" file in my blocks directory. That I previously backed-up as Log.old, do I need to back it up again before I do this? – OLDPC Dec 3 '20 at 19:28

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