IPod classic randomly restored on its own and now wont connect to itunes..

Question

Hey guys
So last week i sync'd my iPod Classic 80gb and everything worked fine.
I've been away for the week and have used my iPod in a couple of different speakers/car transmitters/playstation etc and they have all worked fine.
Then when I got home today, the ipod says 'connected' but doesnt come up in itunes.
However, it does come up in my computer as 'steff's ipod' and shows that there is space being used on the ipod, even though it comes up as blank when i use it.
After I unplugged this it froze and once i got it back unfrozen, everything appears to be gone.
Now whenever i plug it in nothing comes up in itunes even though it says 'connected' however when i unplug it, an error then comes up in itunes saying it cannot sync with the ipod.
The first time i plugged it in it did come up with an error saying it was corrupt.
I've tried installing windows 7 updates, and uninstalling and reinstalling itunes but now itunes just freezees once the ipod is connected to the computer.
Now something similar happened to me a while ago and ended up killing my ipod, I had to go back to Apple and they offered me a refurbished one.
However that time it didnt restore on it's own, something just went wrong and it couldnt sync, but it started with the 'corrupt ipod' message so im thinking its something with my computer that's causing this (the guy at the Apple store did say that my PC caused the problem but i dont know how!)
Any assistance would be great, I don't really feel like spending another 200 dollars on a third ipod.
Thanks!

Answer 1

update- now it will come up in itunes and says it detects an ipod in recovery mode and to restore it.
I do this and it says the ipod will reset and come back up in itunes when it is done, however it never comes back up and either itunes ends up freezing or the ipod does.
then after i reset the computer it goes around in circles and does all of this again