A corrupted wallet.dat is useless. Before attempting decryption, you need to validate the header. A standard wallet.dat starts with 0x00061820 . If the header is missing, you need pywallet or satoshi-forensics to carve the private keys out of unallocated space.
You’ve seen it in hacker forums, Telegram groups, and Reddit threads from 2013: someone pastes a link ending in /indexof/bitcoinwallet.dat and claims, “Free BTC – just download and open.” indexofbitcoinwalletdat better
If the wallet is not in the default location (perhaps you moved the data directory or installed a portable version), use these search methods. A corrupted wallet
Several indexing methods are currently used for Bitcoin wallet data: indexofbitcoinwalletdat better