> Well, the first thing to try would be dumping the header page with gstat -h
> and show us the results.

this is the database before backup/restore

Database "PEPO_21_7_2011.FDB"
Database header page information:
Flags 0
Checksum 12345
Generation 105381
Page size 4096
ODS version 11.1
Oldest transaction 105327
Oldest active 105377
Oldest snapshot 105377
Next transaction 105378
Bumped transaction 1
Sequence number 0
Next attachment ID 1173
Implementation ID 16
Shadow count 0
Page buffers 0
Next header page 0
Database dialect 3
Creation date Jul 6, 2010 16:01:07
Attributes force write

Variable header data:
*END*


Database file sequence:
File PEPO_21_7_2011.FDB is the only file


and this is after the backup/restore

Database "pepo.fdb"
Database header page information:
Flags 0
Checksum 12345
Generation 709
Page size 4096
ODS version 11.1
Oldest transaction 699
Oldest active 700
Oldest snapshot 700
Next transaction 701
Bumped transaction 1
Sequence number 0
Next attachment ID 15
Implementation ID 16
Shadow count 0
Page buffers 0
Next header page 0
Database dialect 3
Creation date Jul 21, 2011 12:37:06
Attributes force write

Variable header data:
Sweep interval: 20000
*END*


Database file sequence:
File pepo.fdb is the only file