Struggling with dates and COUNTIF

Hi,

I am importing a series of data from a database that includes dates and a timestamp. I don't really care about the timestamp.

One sheet has the imported data and data in the "timeout" column has a value like: "6/28/2012 4:18:17 PM"

On another sheet I am trying to count how many data entries there are for a specific date. The data in the comparison cell looks like: "6/28/2012"

I have tried a variety of COUNTIF statements, including:
=COUNTIF('IMPORTED DATA'!E:E,A2&"*")

None seem to be working for me. All attempts have yielded a value of 0. When I can see that the value should be greater.

Any guidance is appreciated.

@ martindwilson - the cells return values as FDibbins describes.

@ FDibbins - Right. And that is my crux. I am hoping that there is some way to incorporate a wild card. Essentially, a "Like" statement. I am hoping to avoid a converter column or worse a converter sheet (since I have a few different date entries in separate columns that will require similar filtering).

If I change the format to general the issue that I face is that I need the values of the range to be an integer. I do not see a way that excel will allow me to control the value of the range. example: =COUNTIF((INT('Full Report'!E:E)),A2) will result in an error.

As the OP is using 2007 how about

Formula:

=COUNTIFS('IMPORTED DATA'!E:E,">="&A2,'IMPORTED DATA'!E:E,"<"&A2+1)

I only tried martindwilson's final suggestion and that worked great!

Thanks!