Accessing Secured Access Database

[E Zapata]

First off ... complete newbie here in regards to MS Access databases.

I have been tasked with providing reporting capabilities which reads
an MS Access database and cross references the data from an SQL
Server.

I opted to go with your basic Java application utilizing the JDBC-ODBC
bridge to connect to the Access DB and Microsoft's SQL JDBC driver for
SQL Support. No problem connecting to the SQL Database. No problem
connecting to 'most' Access Data bases I have available.

The problem is the Access DB I have to work with appears to be
secured. The shortcut used to launch the application is similar to:

{PathToAccess}\msaccess.exe /runtime {file}.mde /wrkgrp {file}.mdw

Which I believe tells me that the MDE file is a compiled version of
the database, with source, design views removed. The MDW is workgroup
information, containing user/password information. The MDB file also
appears to be encrypted, as I cannot make out any strings when viewed
with a hex editor. I can make out interspersed strings with other MDB
files.

I have configured the ODBC driver under Windows XP SP2 to reference
this secured database file (the .mdb). Using my Java code, I can
connect to the database and retrieve a list of the table names. But,
when I try to retrieve table data, I get a read error. I am connecting
with the username/password provided by the vendor when running the
application.

Is there some specific setup I need with the ODBC configuration? The
shortcut used to run the application appears to reference the .mde and
..mdw files, but not the .mdb file directly. Is there some way to mimic
this in the ODBC setup?

Thanks for any information/suggestions.