Query should yield result but doesn't

I need to get data from a remote SQL 2000 server and store it in a new MySQL server. I am using the FreeTSD module for php 5.3 to connect to the SQL 2000 server. I can connect without problems.

Here's my issue; one particular table isn't yielding any result to this query:

SELECT * FROM Item

But this query is successful when I test it SQL Query Analyzer.

I do get results (also remote) when I change it to:

SELECT * FROM Brands

The Item table holds over 500K records and I'm thinking that that might have something to do with it. Could that be the issue and how can I work around that. I have tried this without result:

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM Item

This is the php code to connect:

try {
    $db = new PDO('odbc:Driver=FreeTDS; Server=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx; Port=1433; Database=xxxxx; UID=xxxxx; PWD=xxxxxx;');
} catch(PDOException $exception) {
    die("Unable to open database.<br>Error message:<br><br>$exception.");
}

And this is the select code:

$query = "SELECT * FROM Item";
$statement = $db->prepare($query);
$statement->execute();
$data = $statement->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

echo '<pre>';
var_dump($data);
echo '</pre>';

Which returns an empty array.