Chad, some of this could be a proverbial "red herring". first thing I would try to do is to see if the HDD works. since you can not enter disk mode, the only way to accomplish this is by using a USB-to-Zif adapter. Available on eBay for about $5.00. from the symptoms you describe I am tempted to pronounce your HDD as gone. But start cheap, check your dock connector for debris (pocket lint etc.) corrosion, and bend pins. Change your battery (just because I do that to all of the once I repair and it is amazing what issues can arise with a bad battery) after that its back to your HDD. Oh yeah, make sure that you try a different USB cord and a different USB port. Hope this helps and that it is not to discouraging. The Classics are great and it would be shame if you would not get it fixed. Good Luck