.recovering data (please help!)

Hey devious deviants!

I was wondering if you could help me with this problem. I have always used San Disk memory cards for my camera and they have been working fine. The current memory card has been working perfectly until tonight. I have been photographing in the last weeks (with no problems at all) and tonight have connected my camera with my graphic laptop (the way I always do it) to transfer the photos to my laptop. My graphic laptop did not acknowledge my camera anymore and normally it automatically asks me to open the folder of the memory card. So I tried to manually open the memory folder of my camera and I got an error saying that the San Disk memory card first has to be formatted. This is bullshit, because it has long been formatted. I tried connecting my camera to my other laptop (which until now also went smoothly) and the same error happened there. (I don't understand how this happened, because my camera wasn't 'mishandled' in any way and neither was the memory card. I didn't even touch the memory card, so I definitely have not 'mishandled' it in any way XD)

Now...what do I do?
Because formatting it anew (like my laptops want to do) will overwrite my photos and I really need them. I read that it's also possible to still recover the memory even after the San Disk has been re-formatted, but I'm skeptical and afraid I will lose data. =/ Especially since I'm no pro at data recovery and I don't want to experiment with THIS memory card, because there are photos on there that I truly need and cannot recreate as the subject no longer exists...

So. I first tried to recover the data in its current screwed-up state using the program Wondershare Photo Recovery. It could only find ten photos on my entire memory card. I'm not entirely sure how many photos currently are on this memory card, but I know it's far more than ten photos, I have approximately 16 GB worth of photos on that memory card, so trust me, ten photos (especially considering the format and resolution I always use to save photos) are by far NOT all the photos on that Memory Card.

So please, do you have any suggestions as to HOW I can get my data (ALL of my data, not just ten little photos) of my Memory Card? Any programs that are better than Wondershare? Or do I need to go see a specialist? Has this ever happened to you? Is it safe to re-format the card and can I still recover the data afterwards?

I will be forever grateful for your wisdom!

Thank you!
-Kay