HA!
Thanks PaulJam!!
Now that you mention it, Windows did recently want to run a diskcheck on this drive/iPod.
I just dismissed it as I'd been having other issues related to adding new hard drives to my machine.
This would also answer another issue I couldn't figure out how to explain in order to ask for help.!!!

Thanks a million.
I'll re-format her, re-install, and re-load and report back.

Yeah, the poor disc was *mashed*
This might explain why it was mounting twice with the same drive letter Huh
So far so good.....
Thanks again.
Checking file system on F:
The type of the file system is FAT32.
One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You
may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended
that you continue.
Windows will now check the disk.
Volume Serial Number is B2BC-88A0
\.rockbox\config.cfg is cross-linked on allocation unit 6514.
Cross link resolved by copying.
Convert lost chains to files (Y/N)? Yes
1424 KB in 3 recovered files.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.
58464080 KB total disk space.
64 KB in 4 hidden files.
31184 KB in 1949 folders.
58183632 KB in 8328 files.
249136 KB are available.
16384 bytes in each allocation unit.
3654005 total allocation units on disk.
15571 allocation units available on disk.
Working perfectly now.
I mean perfectly!
The interface is fast
No lock-ups
And the sound!!!