My Mac died on me the other day, and it was so screwed up, it required a complete re-formatting. So naturally I lost all my iTunes data, and associated playlists and play counts and song ratings etc.
The lucky thing is, all my MP3s were stored on a separate FireWire hard drive, so at least I still have all my songs safe.
And because I had my iPod set up to auto-sync with iTunes, I still have all my playlists and play counts and song ratings etc for all my MP3s on my iPod.

But now the problem I have is this: I really make extensive use of the "play count" data to determine my Smart Playlists, and if I were to just drag all my MP3s from my external hard drive back into my now empty iTunes window, all the play count data would be read as being zero for each and every song.
But on my iPod, I DO have the correct play count data -- because as I said previously, I had my iPod set up to auto-sync with iTunes.
So is there any way I can get my play count data and my Smart Playlists and my song ratings FROM my iPod and INTO my iTunes...? Please note, it's not the actual songs I want from my iPod -- those are safe on an external hard drive -- it's just the play count, playlists, and ratings I want for the songs that are already there.

If I DID just drag all my MP3s from my external hard drive back into my now empty iTunes window, and then connect my iPod (set to auto-sync), would I be correct in assuming that iTunes would update my iPod's songs with zero play count info -- and NOT the other way around, so that my iPod would update my iTunes song's to the CORRECT play count info...?

Please, if anyone knows how I can get my original set-up back, do let me know -- I would hate to have to go back to a zero play count for all my songs...