My iPod is unhappy and is making these sad little sounds, like if it's trying to get it's hard drive to spin up, but it just can't seem to do it.
This started when I had the iPod connected to the computer and I was trying to sync it. The sync request came back with an error and it told me that the iPod was in read-only.
I'm going to my nearest apple store to see if they can help me.