Can my iPod be saved?

Factual Questions
1

A few days ago, I plugged my iPod into my computer, iTunes came up as usual, and the iPod crashed, apparently did a restore without my asking it to and now there is nothing on the iPod. I went through the 5 Rs (reset, retry, etc.). Now, the situation is worse. Now when I plug the iPod into my computer, as soon as iTunes reads it, the computer restarts. If I leave the iPod in, the computer will continue to restart.

I’ve dumped iTunes and replaced it with the newest version, 7.6. The same thing happens. I dumped iTunes and replaced it with a freeware called EphPod. This recognizes that I have an iPod, but it tells me it doesn’t have the proper iPod directory structure and I get an error message when I try to build it.

I only did two things with iTunes prior to this that were in anyway different. First, I downloaded an iTunes update (not 7.6 — when I downloaded 7.6 I had to first download a Windows XP Security Pack). The other was my changing an extension in an audiofile as per Nuveena’s post in [thread=453391]this thread[/thread]. PLEASE NOTE: I don’t believe either of these has anything to do with the problem, I’m including this to provide what I think is all the information. Even if changing a file type did cause the problem, in no way do I think Nuveena is to blame, after all I am the one who changed the file type.

I am not at all computer savvy. Back in the day, I could write a simple program in BASIC, but that was about it. Today, all I know how to do is to plug things in the right place and hope it works. I’m guessing, however, that whatever went wrong damaged the iPod software and if I could find a way to redo that, I’d have my iPod back and running.

So for all you iPod geniuses out there, is my assessment correct? And if so, does anyone have any idea how I can go about reinstalling the iPod software without iTunes.

Thanks in advance.

2

I’m not positive about this, so perhaps someone else with some experience can back me up, but you can try plugging in the iPod and getting the computer to acknowledge it as a hard drive, and then reformat the iPod drive (right click the ipod in My Computer, and click format), and then reinstall the iPod software. This might allow you to erase any problematic sectors on the hard disk and cleanly start over.