iPod glitch

I’ve got the last generation, pre-video (I think it was called the “photo” iPod, or something like that). When I leave it laying around for a few days unused, it goes into a deep energy-conservation mode, after which, maybe half the time, all my music disappears. The files haven’t been deleted–the instant I connect it to my computer, the music immediately reappears in the menus. It’s as if it forgets how to access the music files, but hooking it up to iTunes immediately jogs its memory. Which is fine, unless I happen to be three thousand miles away from my computer when it happens. Anybody ever experience this one? Am I just shit outta luck, or is there a patch?