iPod 'Cannot be read or written to or from'

So for the first time in a while, I plugged my iPod into my PowerBook. It showed up as an external, so I opened up iTunes. It began to synch... then I get this message 'the disk cannot be read or written to or from'. I unplugged my iPod, and now there are only 350 songs on my iPod. I tried resetting it, I tried updating it, and I tried plugging it in again. None of it worked, little help?

I guess you could try repairing its permissions

Well, I went into disk utility and completely zeroed it out, then I installed the software, and all is good...