OK. This has now been solved. My guess is that the second block synchronization is not the same as the daemon downloading the blockchain but is the scanning for funds sent to and from the account which determines the wallet balance. Hopefully this will help someone else.
GUI Wallet Showing Zero Balance
I've created a wallet using the 25 word seed to my account. The daemon is fully synchronized. The password is correct and I have full access to all sections of the wallet. I'm using the latest updates. Unfortunately, no matter what I try to do the GUI shows I have a zero balance and I know I have greater than a zero balance. What steps do I need to take to get the correct balance reading for the GUI wallet? One possible issue is I still have some older software on another drive if that helps anyone solve this. Many thanks.
PS- I had a similar problem with the mymonero website a month ago which was solved although I no longer recall how. So I've now decided to open the GUI wizard and start the wallet formation again using the same 25 word seed (but a different name). Everything seemed to be running smoothly, but now the wallet is synchronizing blocks from scratch again even while the GUI daemon shows it is already synced. Very frustrating.