Yup, lol I used to work in pc world until they fired me (thats a whole other story).
I can fix your ipod without even knowing whats wrong with it by following one of these two procedures:
Step 1. let the battery run all the way out and i mean all the way. Turn it on again and let it die again several times until it is well and truly dead. Then charge it up FULLY and it should be back to working. If not, go to step 2.
Step 2. Place it on hard surface or outside on some concrete/tarmac. Strap on your projumps and continue to jump as hard as you can on the ipod multiple times until the ipod splits into a million pieces. Now go buy a decent mp3 player and use that
Step 2 is obviously a joke (though would probably make in interesting photo competition entry).
If you've tried step 1 and its still not responding then there are buttons to press not listed in the manual to give it a hard reset. I cant remember it so do a search for "ipod forums" on google and I am sure there are gurus who know. Google knows all