iPod Touch Restoring

[coolcars782]

I was syncing my 2nd Gen Ipod Touch 8gb on my new laptop eariler using iTunes 10, and it crashed so as you do I opened iTunes back up and it was saying "itunes cannot read the contents of 'Ipod' go to summary tab in iPod prefences and click Restore to restore this Ipod to factory settings. So I go and click on that and it says I will lose my media and other settings, upon google'ing this some people are saying that you will lose everthing and some others saying you will not lose everything (music etc.) The problem is the back up was on a old *dead* computer so I can not get the back up file, I am not bothered about losing music and videos, its my apps that I am worried about. I want to know if I restore it and the new os will be installed if I will lose my apps?

p.s. The ipod works fine, its just iTunes wont work with it.

Cheers,
Carl