Can I recover disappeared songs from iPod before I reformat?

Hi, I have a 20GB Clickwheel iPod (black and white screen), Mac-formatted, and the computer I primarily use it with is an iBook running iTunes 4.8.
Sometime on Saturday my iPod started acting funny, first giving me the dreaded exclamation point/folder, then working but randomly skipping (and not playing songs). Finally, after I did a force-reset (menu+select), the iPod now says it has "0" (zero) songs on it, despite the fact that it also says 18.4 of the 18.6 GB are used up.
Making matters worse, when I connect the iPod to my computer, it says that the Mac doesn't recognize the drive plugged in, giving me the option to ignore, initialize or eject. The iPod does not show up on my desktop, in iTunes or in Finder. It does, however, appear in Disk Utility. This happens regardless of whether I plug the iPod in through regular or disk mode. I downloaded the latest iPod software update, and if I choose open it, it does seem like it will allow me to do a "reformat", but the "update" option is grayed out.
Therefore, here's my question: Is there any way I can save the mp3s on my iPod before (or without) doing a reformatting? This problem happened to me years ago on my old 10GB PC-formatted iPod and I was just able to plug it in and pull the files out of the hidden folders. Now, I can't seem to do this (or don't know how on this Mac). I read something on one of these posts about using the program terminal, which gave instructions to get ALL the mp3s off a crashed iPod, but I haven't tried that because the final complication is that the iBook I'd be moving them to only has 5gb free, so I need to move them a few pieces at a time.
Can anyone help me here??? I'm using all the patience and will i can possibly muster to withhold doing the reformat until i'm certain i won't be able to save these mp3s.
Thanks so much!!!
-Ben

Hey man, I'm in the same hole. I hope to get to the local Apple Store today. Will post if I get an answer. Hope you figure it out, and if so, please pass the knowledge.

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