Search Functionality Problem

Ok, so I have a custom theme created from complete scratch someone made me. He put a searchform.php but the search function is not working at all. It is able to show on my sidebar but when any data is entered and submitted it just reloads the homepage. I was messing with it a little and added the standard search.php file from twenty ten theme and now it searchs but says “Search results for: WhateverISearched” and shows nothing. Any ideas?