Just thought I'd give an update: this problem actually had to do with Clean URLs, once I migrated the site, I had to disable Clean URLs directly in the database since I couldn't access any of the sub-pages of the website so I couldn't get to the admin area, then I replaced the custom htaccess I got from the remote server with an htaccess from a fresh Drupal 5 installation, and that basically solved it! Wow, what a relief, thought I was going to go crazy trying to figure this one out!
Thank you Sivaji for pointing me in the general direction of the htaccess!
