IPod Classic only syncs part of my songs, then grinds to a halt slowly

Hi all,
My iPod Classic (80 GB, almost 3 years old) and I are having beef. Every time I connect it to iTunes it starts syncing just fine, but then after X amount of songs it all of a sudden 'hangs' for a while and then pretends to continue at the gruelingly slow pace of about 1 song per 10 minutes. Eventually it stops all together and gives me the following error messages (excuse any bad translations, it's from Dutch):
* "Copying to the iPod failed. Disk can't be read from or written."
* "iTunes can't copy song X to the iPod because the file can't be read or written."
It's a different song every time. After that iTunes completely freezes, the cursor beachballs to infinity and beyond and I have no choice but to just brutally disconnect the iPod. If I'm lucky there's some music on there, but not always. I now only sybc 1 measly playlist so he can manage it... Oh and the covers & songs are a mismatch (can be amusing when Stephen Fry's face shows up next to a QOTSA song).
Also I've noticed that at the point of no return when the syncing slows, I hear some clicking and revving inside the iPod.. Tell me doctor, is the end nigh? But he's hardly three years old and my most beloved possession!
Tried so far:
* reverting to older iTunes
* updating software
* complete reset of the iPod

I have a theory that it's tied to Snow Leapord and/or iTunes, probably something Apple did to disable Palm Pre phones from being able to sync with iTunes. I've never seen that confirmed though, so it might nto be. All I know is I've been having this problem for a long time. I just tried iTunes 9.2.1 on my Mac hoping Apple had finally fixed it, but alas they didn't.
The solution I found? Get a PC and find an old version of iTunes. You give up some of the newer so-called features, and you've got to deal with a Windows box for your library, but at least the iPod will sync.
For more info/history, see:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11434111#11434111
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12060595#12060595
Message was edited by: gsyoungblood

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