Thank you for the response. I think it was a ribbon connector issue. I was using a toshiba ribbon cable 821-0386-03 which by the looks of it, has the connection pins that are shorter on the disk end. This initially did not work. I then found a second ribbon cable which I believe is for a Hitachi drive 821-0387-03. This has slightly longer pins. As soon as I connected with it, the IPOD worked and I was able to get it restored and running. Then I tried with another Toshiba ribbon cable. This time I pushed the cable into the drive connector as deep a it would go before clamping it. Believe it or not, this one worked as well! These boards actually fit exactly in the slot in place of the original drive. I believe the Hitachi cable is probably more stable due to the longer pins. Now I need to figure out where to get these ribbons from. The Toshiba ribbons are more popular. Lots of sellers on ebay. Hitachi cables unfortunately are a different story. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my question...