Synchronization Problems- MS Access 97

Hi All,

I am converting the old MS Access 97 database to Access 2000 and I am facing some problems. The old database was created by one of the ex-employees and is used by 4 people in one of the departments of the organization and they work on it almost all day.
I thought of doing some test trial conversions before disturbing there work and dealing with the real task.

The old DB is out on the network and I made a copy of it on my local hard drive.
When I opened it using Access97 (I have both Access97 and Access2000 on my computer) I got a message saying:

“This member of the replica set has exceeded the maximum number of days allowed between synchronizations and can’t be synchronized with any other member of the replica set”

But I clicked OK on it and it allowed me to enter the application. But I found that some of the features of the application were not working the same as the ones the people are using in the department (for example: on one of the forms, there is drop down box which populates with the list of surgeons, it works fine with the application used by the people in that department, but the application which I copied doesn’t populated this drop box. It populates the drop box with some numbers). And I am also unable to synchronize this DB as I don’t know which one is the Master DB and I have no idea where is it located??
I am new to this field and I appreciate any suggestions.

Can any one suggest me how to solve this problem? How can I get a copy of the old DB (completely functioning) on my local drive so that I can convert it to Access 2000?

Thanks in advance.