WinXP Firewire Driver Issue - Ipod Help!

Have had an ipod for slightly over 1 year, running fine on windows XP. recently the following started to happen:
1. tells me ipod needs to be reformatted for my computer
2. sporadically crashes computer upon plugging it into firewire drive.
3. continually gives me message "thread stuck in device driver"

The apple tech people claim there is nothing wrong with my ipod. checked for spyware, nope. used system restore to set back to a functional date, nope.

can anyone tell me what's going on, and what i might be able to do about it? I'd really rather not have to wipe my whole system out and start over, for fear of loosing documents and programs that are crucial.

am so frustrated, and appreciate any wisdom, thank you! :(