Computer says iPod is there, but iTunes and Windows won't recognize it

Question

I've had a 60GB ipod photo for about 4 years and it has served me well. This morning the iPod froze in the middle of a song. I hit reset, and it came back blank - all the files were gone. When I got to work and hooked it up to my computer, iTunes and Windows can't recognize it, but I can find it in device manager - which means I couldn't do restore.
I hit reset a few more times, changed USB ports and, somewhat miraculously, the iPod came back, complete with all files. On the way home from work it happened again and I haven't been so lucky.
I forced it into disk mode and iTunes recognized it, but told me it was corrupt. I also received a computer sound card error - my sound card was busy, and an error stating that audio/video playback could be limited. I tried restore, but I received the unknown error. I'm using the latest version of iTunes and I'm all out of ideas.
Any suggestions or should I put this iPod to rest and save up to buy a new one?
Thanks

Answer 1

The most likely problem is that the hard drive in the iPod is becoming unreliable. It may be experiencing sticktion, which is friction that makes the spinning platter stick and the motor cannot get it spinning. The iPod is regularly spinning the hard drive up, to cache songs into memory, and then spinning it down, to save power. If the drive was not able to spin up when commanded (in the middle of a song), the iPod would seem to lock up. Later, bumping the iPod may make the hard drive spin again, so it seems to work again, at least for a while.
If this the the problem, the only way to fix it would be to replace the hard drive inside.
You might try reformatting the iPod using Windows, if you can get it to appear in a My Computer or Windows Explorer window. Use a full format instead of a quick format. If that process competes successfully, run iTunes and try using Restore again to install and initialize the iPod's software.
If formatting does not compete successfully, it may be time for that new iPod.
You can do some experimenting on the old iPod, if you're into such things. I have successfully installed a compact flash card (through an adapter), inside a 4th gen iPod as a replacement for the hard drive. It is only 4GB at the moment, but CF cards up to 16GB are getting relatively cheap, so I might get one of those and start using by old broken 4G iPod again, +now with shock-resistant energy-saving flash-based storage+.