To preface this, I am fairly new to Arduino and its software. I'll try to be as thorough as possible.
I have an Arduino Leonardo which my Windows computer no longer recognizes. Whenever I plug it into the USB port, Windows simply says that it couldn't recognize the device. When I try to set the COM port which the board is plugged into in the Arduino IDE, the tab is greyed out and I can't select anything (I'm on Windows 10 and the latest version of the Arduino IDE).
The board worked just fine until I attempted to upload an empty program so that it wouldn't instantly run something when connected to a power source. I believe the code had an exit(0) in the setup, but uploading seems to have made the Arduino unrecognizable? The problem arises where I can, of course, no longer upload new code to the Leonardo.
I have tried using different cables, different USB ports, different computers (including a Mac), pushing the reset button and uploading at different intervals, etc. and yet I still cannot seem to get it working.
I additionally have an Arduino Uno, which I tried to use to send a new program to the Leonardo as an ISP, while following other forums posts (again I'm a beginner so please bear with me if what I'm doing is completely off the mark). While I'm fairly certain the connections were correct (13 -> 13, 12 -> 12, 11 -> 11, 10 -> Reset, Gnd -> Gnd, 5v -> 5v), and that I had selected "Arduino as ISP" and "Upload Using Programmer", it gives me this error:
avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes! Invalid device signature.
Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
this check.
Other posts have something about potentially needing a capacitor wiring the Reset to the Gnd pin on the programmer, but I figured I'd ask here before having to buy capacitors. Any input on my problem would help, as I'm trying my best to not have to go out and just buy a new board. Thanks in advance.