Replaced broken screen, bottom 1/3 of screen unresponsive

Prior to the repair, the iPod touch worked fine despite the multiple cracks in the screen that resulted from me dropping it face down in the parking lot. The repair went smoothly enough but when I powered it up,, the slide to unlock on the bottom wouldn't respond. I tried restarting, resetting and restoring to no avail. The top of the screen responds so I could slide the power off. The middle of the screen responds because I could hit snooze when the alarm went off this morning but not the bottom, so it is essentially locked. I successfully removed the newly installed digitizer/midsection screen to make sure that the ribbon cable was connected since the intructions didnt show the installtion process. Still, same result. From a few forum searchs, it looks like the screen might be faulty and the only option is to install a new screen. Has anyone else encountered this?