what program out there will give me a shot at getting them back??     ????

I had that problem a few years ago, and found a program that saved my bacon for about $20. I am trying to find it…

There are a bunch of options out there.

-shooter

Recuva
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

Never used a regular, but CCleaner is a decent company

This

Have used it.

Photo Rec is another good free program and easy to use.  I do digital forensics nowadays so if you have any questions shoot me an IM.

Well that's pretty horrible.  If only the directory got deleted (like in a low level format) or corrupted in theory it an be rebuilt by software, it will just take a while.


Let us know if one of the programs works for you.

I'll be trying it later today.   Was at my oldest sister's retirement party with my D780, and my half tanked youngest sister picks up the D780 (she looked like she was being careful with it) and starts shooting with it.     I didn't think "too" much of it, as long as she looked like she was not getting crazy with it, but when I got home I noticed all the pics prior to her picking the camera up were gone.     lol    

Thinking she formatted the card, since u can do that without going into the menu.    Thx for all the help and I'll let u know how things turn out.  

Besides recovering cards with errors on them.  I have recovered a good amount from formatted cards in the past.  

Good luck to you.  Let us know how it works out for you.

Ended up not needing the software, since for whatever reason, even tho the pics didn't show up on my camera when I tried to review them, they showed up just fine on my computer.   Weird.

Thanks for all the help and good advice.     :)