I've had a think about this and the first thing I would do if I was you is slap your husband around the back of the head and tell him to stop fiddling with things, I know us men are like that, thats why there are woman around to control us.
As to the problem with your iPaq are you getting absolutely nothing, not even an LED flashing when you try to power up and what happens when you connect to the USB, does activesync recognise the device but fail to connect, how dead is dead here?