ok, here's what happened ..

when i've used linux, i've always used an application called floola. it's a brilliant little drag and drop ipod manager that's infinitely better than itunes.

trouble is, it's really not compatible with vista (even in compatibility mode!)

so i'd added a couple of old russell brand shows to the ipod this morning, and i thought i'd try floola since i'd upgraded from home basic to ultimate. floola ran, read the ipod database then crashed.

it also decided to take the ipod database with it and showed up as having no songs .. coupled with the fact that whenever i plug it in, it says there might be a problem with it and asks me if i want to scan it.

so i copied the backup and renamed it and restored the songs, but realised that the two russell brand shows were still on the device but lost forever.

so, decided to restore. downloaded and installed itunes. restored.

ipod displays the apple logo with the backlight on, then off, then on, then off e.t.c.. never actually gets to the menu itself ..

so i restored again and decided to use winamp's media player to upload the songs.

had it running for an hour and it had only transferred a couple of hundred songs - it normally does all 6000 in that time.

so reset, put it in disk mode and decided to do a clean format in windows so i could also run a chkdsk.

4 hours in and it's only got about halfway - it's an 80gb ipod and i can't imagine it's going to take eight hours to format it !!

i hope it's not dying .. i have to have a music box deeley