Ok, so no one else goes through the pain I have gone through ... I recently started having drive problems with my brand new 15gb Gen 3 iPod. Periodically, it would start up in scan disk mode, I'd let it go for half an hour, and then it would say I have a disk error. And of course, it gave you no more info than that.
So I fired up the trusty Disk Utility, and checked for errors, of which it found none. I backed up my MP3s and ran the iPod Restore utility. But still, the iPod would not boot in anything but the scan disk. So while I was in the Disk Utility, I decided what they hey, and click on it to be reformatted in the MacOS Extended format. Why not?
Normally it would not be a problem. But here's the kicker. Being that I thought I had some sort of file corruption on the iPod, I selected Zero All Data. This is equivilant to slamming your (insert favorite body part here) in a waffle iron for a few hours. It does not ever finish zeroing the data, and on top of that, my wonderful MP3 player / hard disk is now just a hard disk. It will no longer boot out of disk mode.
Apparently, according to my freindly Apple store associate, this wipes the basic system files the iPod needs. No biggie, right? Just fire up the old Restore program! But ahh, grasshopper, the reformat has wiped the files that allow this Restore program to recognize the device as an iPod. So my iPod took an iDump, and all I have is a 15gb FireWire drive (its really shiny though!).
I have been told about how great Apple is with there service on new products, so I will consult with them on getting it service or replaced. But the moral is: Never run disk utility on the iPod with Zero All Data checked. It can ruin your day.
[robg adds: Not directly OS X related, but I know a number of you probably have iPods, so perhaps this will prevent a similar mistake by someone else.]
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030527130230156