IPod causing my laptop to crash and reboot when connecting to USB !!

Question

Hello all,
Here is what I am working with, 30 GB , 5th gen Video iPod with Itunes 7.6.2.9
Problem:
I have had my Sony Vaio laptop with Vista for a couple of months and it had been humming along just fine with my 30GB Video iPod. After loading some new pics via Itunes recently I noticed that the capacity used information in the About section of the iPod was incorrect, my iPod was showing 1gig left, and I only have 500 songs, 600 photos, 3 videos and some podcasts loaded. Itunes showed I had plenty of space left so that contradicted what the Ipod reflected. So after some googling I found that the recommended solution was to restore your iPod and reload all your music back via Itunes. Little did I know that trying to solve that little problem would create a far greater one.
First using an external hard drive (Western Digital) I backed up all of my music from Itunes. I then started the restore process via Itunes, during the restore my computer hung and froze. Then my computer crashed and rebooted. When it came back up I plugged the iPod back into the USB to complete the restore, this time however my laptop did not recognize my iPod (note, it is empty, with no music since I did the restore). Instead my system assigned it a drive letter G: in the my computer section. A message box pops up asking if I want to scan and check or skip this new drive, it also says scan is recommended. I selected the scan and it checked the Ipod with no problems. If I elect not to scan the iPod then the computer will crash within 30 seconds. After it scans it appear s as if it is going to synch up, iPod says ‘do not disconnect’, then bam, computer crashes and reboots with the black screen. I tried various troubleshooting steps and each time when plugging the iPod in Itunes it starts up and it takes maybe 1 minute trying to recognize it when the computer crashes and reboots automatically going to the black screen and doing a file dump. It seems that no matter what I do Itunes does not recognize the iPod, the system sees it as a mass storage device, hence I am unable to complete the restore.
To troubleshoot I have done the following without any luck:
- Removed Itunes (3x, using different versions) and reinstalled it, tried again
to restore nothing, still crashing
- Removed and reinstalled Quicktime as stand alone, still same thing. Note: for some reason on Vista you have to have Quicktime installed separate as stand alone and not select the automatic bundle version that comes with Itunes otherwise you will get a separate error that won’t allow you to open Itunes and it will say it’s corrupt. I spent hours on just this problem.
- Downgraded my Itunes to an older version. Same problem.
- Upgraded ITunes to the latest and greatest, 7.6.2.9, nada.
- Reformatted my ipod at the command line, so as to bypass my computer from doing it, plugged it back in, this time it went a little longer before it crashed when Itunes came up.
- Downloaded and installed all the latest Vista patches and fixes.
- Downloaded and installed the latest Sony patches and fixes.
- Re-assigned the drive letter on my Ipod, changed it to “Ipod”, “P”, and lastly “Q”, still shows up on my system as that drive letter, then Ipod. Another time it showed up just as drive letter, and “mass storage device”. Still Itunes is not recognizing it.
- Plugged the iPod into different USB ports, 3 different ones, still same.
- Checked each USB port, a sound does come on for each port when either plugging in the Ipod or another device, all ports recognize when a device is plugged in.
- Made sure no other devices are plugged into the USB ports.
- Disabled every single USB port via Device Manager, then plugged in Ipod, at that point it didn’t even recognize it.
- Disabled every single USB port, except for 1, then plugged in Ipod, recognized in computer but not Itunes, then Itunes tries to recognize it, during that time my computer crashes and reboots
- Disabled and reenabled every single USB port, then tried. Ipod is recognized in device manager but not Itunes. Ipod shows message “do not disconnect” for awhile, seems like its working… then bam, my laptop crashes. By the way, Itunes does come up and all my music is there.
I also did this:
Reset the iPod using these steps:
- Disconnect iPod.
- Make sure the 'hold' switch is not on.
- Press and hold the 'menu' and 'select' (circle) buttons simultaneously.
- Keep holding them both down for at least five seconds.
- The iPod displays the apple logo and properly resets.
In summary, I have spent over 30 hours working on this problem. Bottom line is Vista is assigning a lettered drive to the iPod thinking it is a mass storage device, hence it is not being recognized in Itunes enabling it to complete the restore. To complicate matters before you can do much troubleshooting the *laptop crashes and reboots within 3 minutes of plugging the iPod into any of the USB ports.* !!!
This is just utterly insane, don't know what else to do. For starters stopping my laptop from crashing everytime it is plugged in would be nice !
Losing it in L.A.

Answer 1

+I tried various troubleshooting steps and each time when plugging the iPod in Itunes it starts up and it takes maybe 1 minute trying to recognize it when the computer crashes and reboots automatically going to the black screen and doing a file dump.+
I'm curious about this point. Is there any flash of a blue screen at any point here? (That's a more familiar sort of thing to be seeing prior to the system doing a restart after a serious error.)