Its "stuck" back on the XP OS system, I agree with the fact that XP is opening a database with a higher level reference, but I have never had "unrecognized format" before. I hd just done an UPDATE on the Vista x64 system, and there were OFFICE updates, so potentially, a recent 2007 OFFICE update in X64 land could have caused an issue.
Holding the shift key down doesn't help. . .I can't import from the database either.
Just glad that it wasn't a primary database.
i am going with its corrupted! hopefully, its not my disk drive, and so its off to buy a new disk after 3 years.