Memory card disaster - recoverable?
Went to a wedding at the weekend and took lots of photos. The bride's mother asked to borrow the cameras memory card so that she could download the photos to her ipad. I gave her the memory card clearly stating that I knew nothing about ipads or what she was attempting to do other than in principle. (I have an ipad myself but do not dig too deeply into it).
She had a 'brick' to interface the memory card to the ipad and plugged the 'brick' in and then plugged the memory card into the brick. She seemed pleased that the contents of the memory card appeared on her ipad and proceeded to 'tick' the wedding photos she wanted to transfer to the ipad. The display on her ipad was also showing my holiday snaps but she obviously did not want those so did not 'tick' them.
Some short time later she said nothing had been transferred to the ipad and could I check the memory card in the camera? I did notice during the transfer process that she was plugging the memory stick in and out of the 'brick' in a somewhat willy nilly fashion which as we all know is not a wise thing to do. I checked the memory card in the camera and discovered all the photos of the wedding were no longer present. Oh dear, tears from the bride's wife. All that was left on the memory card were my holiday snaps that she did not want.
It occurs to me that:
1. The wedding photos (which are imported to the ipad rather than copied or transferred using the bride's Mum's software app) may well be on the ipad but may be in a folder not readily accessible?
2. The photos may still be on the memory stick and may be recoverable ?
3. The ipad has very limited operational capability to poke around it and see whats what.
4. Perhaps I need a (hopefully free app) to be able to recover the complete contents of the memory stick?
5. I have made sure that I have taken no further photos on the memory stick after this 'incident' in case the original contents may become irrecoverable.
6. I have a windows laptop into which I can plug the memory card if windows is a maybe a better way to try and recover the situation.
Grateful as ever for any team thoughts. The bride's mother is my sister in law and she is distraught as what she has done.