Help! iPod suddenly will not update or sync or even be recognised by my PC!

Question

Hi,
I've been reading all the topics - but I still need help!
I have a 3rd generation 20GB ipod that i've had for just over a year (just out of warranty!) and have never had a problem with it. Recently I needed to use it as a hard drive as well and enabled the disk space etc. I have 13GB music and pretty much filled the rest of it with windows media player files to transport them somewhere next week.
Plugged in my iPod to sync it with iTunes and was asked if i wanted to get the most recent iPod updater - i said no because my internet connection here is really slow and i was going to wait until i'm home from uni next week. So i said no - and then there were a few songs to add to the iPod but it must have tipped it over it's GB limit because a message appeared saying "iPod does not have enough disk space to update - would you like iTunes to choose you a selection of songs". I said no b/c i was going to just let it charge a bit off the PC and then next week when i moved the WMA files i knew there would be tons of free space. However today I decided to shift some of the WMA files off my iPod b/c i bought some new music and wanted it on my iPod, and when i plugged it in the following happened:
- Computer made the usual da-dum sound when connected
- iTunes did not recognise the iPod was connected and froze
- The Safely Remove Hardware thing recognised the iPod was connected but could not remove it and froze when asked to
- The iPod did not show up on 'My Computer' as it usually does (usually F Drive and says Leila's Ipod) only said F drive removable disk - but when i clicked on that it froze too.
Decided to download the latest iPod updater (10th jan i think) to see if that would fix it (I'm running iTunes 6 btw) and when I plug my iPod in the updater freezes too... sometimes it then says 'Cannot mount iPod' and sometimes nothing happens.
Have restarted iPod and PC several times (iPod fully charged) but nothing works.
iPod still works fine despite having to be disconnected when it said 'do not disconnect' because i had no other way of removing it, i just can't update/sync it
Have looked at all iTunes tutorials and can't even do the restore thing they suggest (which i really would rather not do anyway b/c it would lose my WMA files) b/c the updater can't stop freezing.
Someone told me that perhaps i've overloaded it and there's no room for the disk to do buffering etc (?) - is there any way to fix this?
Sorry for long post
Would really appreciate advice!
Thanks
Dell Inspiron 8600   Windows XP  

Answer 1

I read your post and I thought it was me. I have the exact same problem and I am very frustrated here. After reading all of negative feedback about the latest updater, I think Apple needs to step up to the plate and do something to fix these issues.
My son's iPOD has stopped working since this latest updater as well.
iPod click wheel   Windows XP  
Dell   Windows XP