Although my previous idea proved ineffective - to change the baud rate for the Nano in the boards.txt file from 57600 to 9600, i thought that perhaps 9600 was not the default baud rate for the Nano board with a 328P chip.
After a quick google search for default baud rates on arduino boards, I yet again stumbled upon a possible solution to the problem.
A user at another electronics forum had posted about the same problem i was having and in the replies someone suggested that he should:
- uninstall the currently installed drivers that came with the arduino IDE (and stop windows from attempting to re-install them automatically).
- download a different set of rivers from FTDI ( http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/CDM/CDM20824_Setup.exe ) and install them
- restart windows if necessary
and it worked.
(original forum/thread: Arduino Nano v3 atmega 328p avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00 - Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange , don't know if there are restrictions on posting links to other forums)
too bad posting on that forum is tightly regulated, i would have liked to be able to thank the user more freely.
So if anyone is having this issue, try out the different set of drivers, I hope it helps.
Cheers!