A couple of weeks ago, I had to send my laptop to get repaired and when I got it back it was set back to factory settings. So, I re-installed the iPod software and iTunes. That went okay. But when I tried to hook my iPod up the my laptop, I got a message saying 'The USB device attached has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it.' When I unplugged the USB, my iPod seems to have frozen. The backlight won't go off and when I use the click-wheel, nothing happens. I'm not sure how to fix it. Any ideas what's went wrong and how to fix it?
First off try resetting your iPod by holding Select and Menu. The Apple icon should appear and if it worked your iPod should go back to normal. If your computer still doesn't recognize your iPod try resetting it again [holding select and menu] and while the Apple icon is on the screen hold down select and play which will force your iPod into disk mode. This should allow you to attach your iPod to your computer, and have the iPod updater recognize it. Allowing you to restore the firmware which should solve your troubles.
try uninstalling anything to do with ipod's from you're computer and then reinstall them again. I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM AS YOU WITH THE IPOD FREEZING JUST DISCONNECT IT FROM YOU'RE COMPUTER AND LET THE BATTERY DIE.