Cant seet Ipod in itunes or windows

Hello, I am having this problem. I got a referbished I pod a while back. after about 25 days of having it after the 30 day warrenty expired It went into the stupid sad face Icon. I just assumed that the guys who made the ipod screwed me over beacuse I had to go back in 5 times till they figured out what they were doing wrong. It was a really annoying situation. Anyways I left it in a box for the last year thinking I would have to pay to have it repaired and wasnt going to go back to them.

My friend just had the stuiped sad face icon show up as well but he went to the support page and got it to fix. The problem is my Ipod when I plug it in now wont even show up on my computer. It doesnt even reconginze it. I figured it might be I tunes So i updated to the latest version but i figured my laptop would at least recognize the Ipod in the my computer folder.

If anyone could help out i really want to get this thing up and running again. If its a simple reinstall I am more then willing to give up all the old music I had on the thing to get it going again. Any help is greatly appreciated!