random songs deleted from hard drive and iTunes

[mrfredmor]

I recently noticed that many of the songs I had in iTunes were deleted from my drive, apparently at random. I should have most of these songs on my iPod, but am looking for some advice on the best way to synchronize from my iPOd to iTunes without losing anything else on my iTunes (such as purchased music and videos and podcasts.)

Any help/suggestions for not only software but also for the proper method/routine to accomplish this restore procedure?