Background:
I have a database I am rewriting in Access 2000 (split DB) that was
originally written in VB 3.0 with Access 2.0. The database has about 70
tables and was actually designed very well, completely normalized, very
efficient and had autonumber fields for all table primary keys. So I simply
imported the tables into Access 2000 for the back end and I am replicating
the forms and behavior in an Access 2000 front end.

Problem:
After working on this for 6 months including having the users do some
preliminary testing I have just discovered that one of my tables had reset
the next autonumber value to 1. Obviously I couldn't add records to the
table because key value 1 already exists. To recover from this I copied the
table (structure only) and ran an append query to create all of the records
with proper key values. Problem solved!!!

Questions:
How could this have happened? If this happened to one table can I prevent it
from happening to another in the future?  I had repaired and compacted the
front and back ends a day or so before this problem surfaced. I have never
seen a repair and compact cause this problem.

Thanks in advance!