Oh, iPod/iTunes, whatever will I do with you... (problems, of course)

Please bear with me, as I think it’s necessary for myself to explain the situation (but not drag this ‘Detail’ section on forever…).

Last night I began having problems with my iPod (3.1.1) as it played. Songs began to skip onto the next MP3 at random points in no real order. I attempted to turn the device off, and simply restart it, but doing so provided no solution.

I, of course, then went to the ever-knowledgeable Google, and came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to simply let the iPod’s battery drain completely (it may be important to note, that by this time, the songs had gone from skipping at random points, to skipping entirely over every-single song, one-by-one. Each second that passed, the iPod would skip over about 3 songs!)

Today, after coming back from classes, I charged the iPod, and after an hour or so, attempted to play music from it… only to discover that :( everything had been completely wiped off. It’s back to it’s default settings, and everything that was “personalized” (playlists, ect) are gone too.

I plugged the iPod back into my computer to just rewrite the songs onto the device again, but now iTunes (when already opened) completely freezes, and my iPod makes clicking noises (oh, so soothing…). When I plugged the iPod in before opening iTunes, I discovered that iTunes would not open until I unplugged/disconnected the iPod from my computer.

So, after this epic tale of unfortunate occurances, it would be so awesomely great if anyone reading this could offer ANY suggestions at all, or ways to work around the problems that I’m experiencing. Does anyone know what I’m talking about, or have you experienced the same thing as I am? This is no fun!