Well, I seem to be having big-time problems here! After buying a 30GB iPOD from a co-worker about a month ago, and enjoying it solidly for that time, I'm about ready to throw it in the creek after the past 24 hours or so.

It started 3 days ago. I was listening to some tunes, when all of a sudden the iPod froze in the middle of playback. Resetting it brought the folder and exclamation point icon. Searching through these forums, I found to restore the OS. Easy enough, however it got to about 98% complete on the desktop, but didn't go past that. Again, another search on iPodLounge Forums show that seems normal enough on Windows 2000, so I removed the iPod from the firewire cable. Nothing. Did a reset, immediately came to the folder and exclamation point icon. Another reset put me at the point that I'm at now. As soon as I reset, there immediately begins a constant beeping (more a clicking, as it seems to be the same sound that comes from the speakers when I select a song, only its non-stop for about 2 minutes, then it changes pitch to be slighly higher for about 1 more minute, then it resets to the Apple logo, then freezes again. Tried putting it into forced Firewire mode as seen on these forums, as well as the disk-check mode that I read on these forums, but the only button combination that works is Menu and Play/Pause, which resets and starts the whole thing over again. Sometimes after a reset, I get the folder and exclamation point icon when it freezes, other time nothing but a blank screen.

Any ideas? I've run through my limited thoughts, and don't know how Apple repair works since I am not the original owner and don't have a receipt. Can someone please help?