I went to my computer and made the mistake of looking at it. Then it said it couldn’t write to the iTunes library (iTunes was already open). I tried to open Firefox, but it wouldn’t open, some error message about it already being open. Mail was being really slow. Tried force-quit. When I rebooted my computer, nothing came up. There was just a gray apple and the indicator animation. I could tell by the repetitive sound the hard drive was making that something was wrong. I waited a long time and tried again. And again, and again. Found a website on my iPhone that said how to reset the PRAM and use the install disk to repair the hard drive. That didn’t work it said there were errors. Of course there are, that’s why I want to fix it! All attempts to boot in safe mode have failed. Now when I try to boot there is no apple. Just a blank light gray screen for a long time, and then this.
[UPDATE: According to this help page, you can restore your purchases to another computer using your iPod. I know I’ve purchased a couple songs since the last time I sync’ed my iPod, but this is better than losing everything from the last year!]