Have you tried syncing with your computer? I don't read that so much that is has to be the original computer as much as the one currently used to sync the iPod in question.
It's fundamentally a disk drive. You should be able to copy the contents, and either reload directly after a reset or re-add from your pc/hard drive I would think.
There should be a couple of ways to approach this in a way you save your music. It may be cumbersome or sloppy but anything has to be better than losing the tunes.