iTunes gone funny?

Hi everyone,
I run on Windows Vista, and I've used iTunes ever since I've bought this laptop. Yesterday, out of nowhere, when I opened iTunes, it said something about missing gaps.. and a process started going. I only came in when it was almost done so I didn't catch what it was saying. It looks like I still have my normal iTunes library, but all my playlists (including my iPod selection) and Podcasts have dissapeared.
Has anyone had this problem before or know if there's a way to recover all the lost playlists and podcasts? It would be a nightmare to find all the downloaded podcasts and remake all the playlists, most of them were over a day long. Thanks ahead if anyone can help!

 

forums below may be of use

http://www.iprong.com/phpBB2/

http://forums.ilounge.com/

http://www.ipodwizard.net/index.php

http://forums.ipodhacks.com/

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa?categoryID=1

Good Luck