IPod Video shows a sad face and does not appear on my laptop?

Hi, 🙂

So basically I have had my 30GB ipod video (5th gen) for quite a few years and have never really had any problems with it till now (aside from a slightly faulty backlight).

The other day I tried to turn it on, only to find that the screenalternated between the "sad ipod face" icon and the "please wait, very low battery" icon, despite being plugged in to my usual wall charger. After leaving it a while and messing with the buttons, attempting to reset it and such likes, it came up with a message telling me to connect it to itunes to restore, which I did. However, neither my computer nor my itunes would recognise the ipod and it came up with the low battery screen more frequently.

I left it plugged in to my wall charger in the hope it would charge and after trying a couple of times it worked, I tried using the 5 r's as far as possible though, not very succesfully as i could not access the ipod through the computer. I also tried following the instructions on some other sites, though once again to no avail.

After having carried it around in my bag for the past couple days, with some more attempts to fix it I decided to have another proper look on the internet and managed to get it into diagnostic mode and then put it onto Manual Test mode >IO > Hard Drive > HD SMART Data, however when I do this it comes up with a message saying "SMART not supported" What does this mean? I also tried the auto test and as far as I am aware it seemed okay, though I am not really sure and I couldn't complete the test as i haven't got a firewire cable.

Is there any hope for the harddrive or do you think it is time for a new ipod?... should I try taking it apart, considering I have no experience?....

Any ideas on how to fix it would really be appreciated!

Thanks

Naomi 🙂