Sorry to hear that Gibbo. I changed my computer recently and I put the iTunes on an external drive, didn't help. Couldn't get the thing back on to the Hard Drive , so had to put the installation disc in. This, I thought, deleted all the library, hours later found the files in the recycle bin.........
Didn't affect the iPod at all and my first thought was to pull them back from the iPod. Spend a long time and couldn't find any way of doing this.
Love the iPod for what it is, despise iTunes. There was recent Thread about this so perhaps there is something in there to help ?
Hope you find a solution.