IPOD CLASSIC syncing & ratings, 2 Questions

For years I never attached my iPod classic to my MAC & iTunes, (because over the years, I lost hard drives, Mac Book, Laptop etc)

However, I had bought some new CD's and added them to iTunes, then I wanted to sync with my iPod, however I needed to reset first and lost all my ratings and playlists. Everything is added now, but I have a couple of questions.

Firstly, If I add a rating on my iPod, that doesn't sync with iTunes anymore, If I rate it in iTunes it will sync to my iPod, Is there a setting I have missed iTunes? I have looked, but I can't find a way around it, having thousands of songs, it will take a long time to get them all rated, even longer if I need to sit at my Mac.

Secondly, I have read you can go into old playlists and possibly re-attach the ratings, I initially thought that as I'd lost hard drives, I didn't have any, but I think I have found one, (even if it had a number of ratings I could extract, that would be good, if it's possible and easy-ish!

Incidentally, before I synced, another issue I had was as I had all my music on an external hard drive, since APPLE MUSIC appeared & the way iTunes worked has changed, it was adding songs and duplicating them in very strange places, but I now know this is the is the way iTunes Music Media places things etc

I am using a MacBook Pro 14" M3 and the (6th gen?) thin iPod 160gb classic, but don't think the issue is the pod, it seems more to do with iTunes? Obviously it's an old machine, but apart from having no bluetooth it is a great way to have your old songs in one place.