Possible Solution to Frozen iPod, iTunes not responding and sad folder

There may be hope for frozen iPods, unresponsive iTunes and sad folders. This solution is totally anecdotal at this point as it only has worked on my iPod. However, try it you got nothing to lose. Our iPods broken right? It's a $300 paper weight right?
History
My iPod 4G 20GB started skipping songs then rebooted and gave me the sad folder. I reset and everything went downhill from there. I would:
- not be recognized in My Computer
-when I did get a drive on My Computer it would lock up My Computer
-reboot and either give me sad folder or Menu with no songs
-refuse to be updated
-be seen in Device Manager as ipod both with Firewire and USB connections
I read through the many threads here and tried all Apple's Solutions to no avail. I even called and they told me, very nicely and free of charge, that I would have to send it in and because the repair price was such to "look at the new models to see which one I wold like". I was totally bummed. I went and bought an new Nano 4GB (with warranty this time) swearing I would never buy another with a HDD again until they became more reliable. I even tried the smack it to get the disk head unstuck method. I figure my iPod was a paper weight at this point so what the ****.(Oddly this method works rather well with all sorts of broken electronics)
Solution
Then I cam across this special Diganostics Mode that you can get to by resetting and then while the Apple is showing pressing the Select and backwards keys simultaneously. It bring up and weird Diagnostic utility witha a abunch of tests. Here is what I did
- I tried the 5in1 test and got and error on Firewire.
- I did the HDD R/W and surprisingly it passed.
- I went on to the HDD scan. This supposedly tkaes acouple of minute so I waited. I think 4-5 dots appeared then nothing. The iPod started to get hot. THe disk was spinning away. After a while the battery got very low. THis test chews up the battery. So I escaped out by resetting and went to connect it to a power source.
My USB was dangling out of my computer and I was too lazy to get the Firewire AC adapter thing going so I connected expecting the whole lockup thing with iTunes. Surprise. IT was recognized immediately and has been working like a champ. So go figure.
iPod 4G 20GB Windows XP
Details on Diag mode can be found at http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/ipodsupport/diagnosticmode/index.shtml
hp a330n Windows XP

My ipod only gets the sad logo and whenever I try to start it up I can hear the hard drive trying to start and then failing and it does so like 3 or 4 times. After I read your post I wanted to try that diagnostic thing but I can't get it into that mode. How long should I have to hold select and back? After I reset the ipod, it goes to the sad face, the hard drive seems to fail a few times and then the screen goes blank and stays like that for as long as I hold those buttons. I'm so sick and tired of dealing with a broken ipod but I really want to get this thing working again so I can never buy another Apple product again. Thanks.

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Possible Solution to Frozen iPod, iTunes not responding and sad folder

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