He who Dares Loses

In an effort to stop my Archos AV500 from becoming a paperweight in a week or so when all the protected content stops working I today put the pedal to the metal and made it into a paperweight a bit early. The idea was that perhaps a complete formatting might make it work as a Windows Media device. I'd still have to retransfer all my protected content over, but at least I would know where I stood....

Wrong. My Archos just took the formatting in its stride, destroyed all my content and then refused to work anyway.  I feel like one of those high priests who have just despatched a couple of virgins to the gods and found that it is still raining. Blarst.

Archos technical support are adamant that it is a hardware problem and are suggesting I take it back to the shop. I think this is because they have a sadistic desire to see me tangle with Dixons customer support. Or perhaps they are rather cunningly inviting me to live with the problem.  Not sure what to do now.