Trouble adding music to a 3rd gen ipod

Greetings,
I recently received a used 20 gb third gen ipod as a gift. I have found that intermittently, when adding files, itunes will loose track of the ipod, claiming that it is no longer connected. This seems to be a problem when adding large numbers of files, more than small. I have tried the standard 5 R strategy, but the problem persists. Does anyone have any advice on what might be wrong? Could the hard drive be going bad?
My thanks in advance for any help anyone might offer.

Hello minigendo,
And welcome to Apple Discussions!
I don't really have too many suggestions for you at this point, except for maybe to try and manually force the iPod into Disk Mode or tick the "Enable Disk Use" option from under your iPod's Summary tab in iTunes. This might help the iPod remain mounted on your computer.
Have you tried using the iPod on a different computer to see if the issues persists there or not?
Otherwise, it definitely sounds like some faulty or dying hardware on your iPod. As to what, is the real question. It could be your hard drive, but its hard to tell at this point. However, you will need to get your iPod serviced either by Apple, a 3rd party repair company, or opt to do it yourself.
B-rock

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