I rescued a trio of old iPods from the depths of my girlfriend's parent's cabinet this weekend! When I asked about them, they said "Oh, yeah, those old things haven't worked in years; they're yours if you want them."

I wound up with two original 4GB minis (green and blue), and a 10GB 3rd gen. The two minis have dead HDDs (both click when you give them power), and I am waiting on a FireWire-->30-pin cable to try charging the 3rd gen. I replaced the HDD in the blue, nicer-looking mini with a 6GB microdrive that I had laying around, and it works like a champ! I may just keep the green one around as a partsPod. I'll update this thread when I learn more about the state of the 3rd gen