new hdd? have done lots of troubleshooting

My ipod has work fine for about 7 years. Then one day it gave me the red cross of death. I resolved that with a swift jerk to my hand and life was great again. Then it started skipping a song midway here and there. I tried to connect my ipod to my pc (windows xp) it told me my ipod could not sync due to missing file.

In my frustration of updating itunes, reformatting my computer, restoring my ipod, etc.... i was left with an ipod that would play most of the music but would choose to skip several songs. One day a song would work the next it wouldn't. There were a certain few that would always play.

So i tried to restore again, when i add music now it will add and then eventually freeze itunes. My ipod says storage is used but no music.

I've tried to reformat to fat32 but windows fails to do so and only offers the exfat option.

Im afraid the hdd may have taken too many hits. Especially since the red x.

I'm 99.9% sure my hdd needs to be replaced. If so I'll do it. I have the a1238 ipod 80gb, would a 160gb slim fit or a good bigger drive? I've been reading people upgrading to 240gb.

I also want to know what else might be worth replacing, my ipod has been pausing on it's own for years. I think the headphone jack could need replacing, the battery has been fine but it is close to 8 years now.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.