If I continue scanning the blocks (15 weeks behind), will the bitcoins appear on my balance after completing the scan, or should I have changed the name of the file before doing the entire rescan?
Because simply closing Bitcoin client and restarting it (with the name changed to wallet.dat), does not give me my balance.
The wallet will not display any balance until it finds the block transactions where you first started receiving bitcoins with this wallet. It will not show the correct balance until it has finds the last (most recent) block transaction where you received or spent bitcoins from this wallet.