iPod classic won't sync

So about a week ago, I bought a few new songs on iTunes and went to sync my iPod like normal.

I kept getting an error that it couldn't sync but it said it was syncing so I didn't worry about it.

Until the next morning I went to use it and even though it didn't sync at all, ALL MY MUSIC WAS WIPED. It's still all on iTunes, but my iPod was cleared out entirely. When I went to try to sync it again, I got an message that there was an error with the iPod so I tried letting Windows fix the error (I often get an error message saying there's a problem with the iPod but 9 times out of 10 it still works and/or gets fixed). Well, this time it said it could not be fixed. Then it said there was an error and it couldn't be synced and to restore the iPod to factory settings.

So I did.

And that did absolutely nothing.

I've been trying and trying to troubleshoot and trying different things like re-authorizing the computer, starting everything, changing the language (apparently it worked for some people). I even tried a different laptop with a newer version of iTunes (I'm skeptical to update on my main laptop because there's a small chance my library will be wiped and I'll have to restore all my music and re-make all my playlists), and that didn't even work. I get the same problem:

iTunes knows the iPod is connected, it shows it but when I click sync, it says "syncing" for about half a second then says "Sync complete" even though nothing at all was synced. I'm not very tech savvy but I saw that restoring it on a Mac and then going back to reformat it with Windows might work and I'll be trying that next but in the event that doesn't work, I need some other solutions.... except what everyone else tells me --

Everyone tells me "You should just use your phone!" but I have a 160GB classic that's about 3/4 full, no way am I putting that much music on my phone! So any other things to try, I'm all ears! Thanks!