Unable to restore ipod.

I followed the steps in this article to the letter, and still get the same response "cannot restore ipod, error code 1434 (other times I get 1439)." I was not doing anything to the ipod when it stopped working, listening to music and all of a sudden in the middle of the song, it stopped. Wouldn't play or select another song. Did a soft reset, and tells me I need to restore it using iTunes. I try to restore using iTunes and that won't work. Right now I have a $250 paperweight. Any help??