Q: 5th gen won't update or restore?

I've tried everything listed in that article, save for trying it on a different computer, which I'm in the middle of doing right now.

There's only two problems with this - one, it's not only taking an abnormally long time to even attempt the update, but it's also throwing me a handy "this device needs to be updated or restored," pop-up while it's already in-process of attempting to update. Two, (I probably should've mentioned this earlier) I can't access my actual iPod. It's been stuck on a screen with icons instructing me to connect my device to iTunes, and I can't get rid of it. I connect it to iTunes, nothing happens. Hard reset, nothing happens.

S.O.S!

Alright, so, it spent about 2 full hours doing that. It finished downloading, and still nothing. Now I'm just here again, with my old friend, the 'connect your device to iTunes' screen.

Now the only major difference is that the screen shows up for about a minute, and then disappears until I turn on the iPod again.