Did not format SD card and lost pictures, Can I get them back?

I have a Nikon Camera. I noticed that every time you transfer photos you have to format the SD card. If you do not when you try to review the photos, each photo comes up with an error. Last night I was in a hurry. I took my daughter to the fair, well before I ran out the door I took a picture and looked at it to see if I got an error and I did not. But after going to the fair and taken dozens upon dozens of photos I go to put them on my computer and about 5 of the ones I took are NOT coming up with an error, which means the rest have errors. Anyone know of any way to retrieve the photos? I'm not used to having to format the SD card everytime, my last camera and SD card I NEVER had to do this. Thank you ahead of time… ALSO I have tried Wondershare, File scavenger, and Recuva, and none of these help me. When I used them they just made a ton of multiples of only 4 photos totaling to 1500… Lots of the same 4 photos…

You seem to not have a routine for dealing with your image files. The problem you have shared with us is NOT camera specific. This can happen using ANY camera brand or model.

Here is what most of us do and All pros do

At the end of each shooting day, All the image files are copied to the hard drive using a card reader to a new file folder named for the subject and date. Sample: ASUFB2012

After all the images are safely on the computer, the card is then reinserted into the camera and formatted using the format feature on the camera.

Do this at the end of every shooting day and you will not have any problems of losing image files or corrupted memory cards

It is clear that you have been using your memory card as your storage device. It was never intended to be used that way.

I use Lexar's Rescue 4 when friends have problems with their memory cards.

NOTE: If you used your card after your other image files became corrupted, you may not be able to recover more than you have already. It is very important to use one of your other cards until you can resolve the problems with any card corruption

It should not be necessary to format your SD card each time you use it. That is just a myth. While it might be considered as best practice by some, and it will not hurt to do so - it is not necessary.

I have several Nikon cameras as well as Olympus and Canon cameras that all use SD cards. I routinely use the SD cards in all of the cameras - and I never pay attention to mixing and matching the card in the cameras.

I may use the same card in more than one camera, as well as using the card for other files not related to photography). If I need a SD card, I just grab one without paying attention to what the card has on it.

And I'm lazy so I never format the SD card prior to use, either when used for other purposes, or from the factory.

And when I format the card, I sometimes format it in the computer rather than the camera - and still no problems.

I have a dozen or so SD cards, but always buy good Sandisk cards.

And while I suppose this could be considered abuse of the SD cards by some, I have never had a card corruption issue. If I can throw out that kind of abuse on SD cards, and not have corruption issues, then my conclusion is that SD cards are hardier than most give them credit for.

Again, I have never had a corruption issue…

At least, not until I tried to force corruption to see why so many people have problems.

The only time I could remotely get the card to corrupt is when purposely removing the card while it is writing, or removing the card without properly unmounting it from your computer. That will surely corrupt the card, and I think a lot of issues folks are having is due to poor card handling (failing to unmount the card, etc), not that they fail to format the SD card in the camera.

If you format the card in the computer, make sure you use FAT32 or exFAT as a file system, and for the best performance, use a 32kb block size. This is easy to do on Windows, but a bit harder on a Mac or Linux - so you may want to format the card in the camera just for that reason.

When removing or inserting the SD card from the camera, always do it when the camera is powered down.

When removing the SD card from the computer, always dismount it rather than just pulling it out. Dismounting on Linux (Ubuntu) or a MAC is just right-clicking the icon for the card, then selecting UNMOUNT. For a PC, you need to click on the hardware icon in the tray, then select safely remove media.

I bet most people don't even know these functions exist on their computer.

Also, never attempt to place edited/changed files back into the SD card, or photos from one camera into the folder that is used by another camera, as that can lead to corruption as well. You can use the same card on more than one camera - but only if camera A does not attempt to read camera B files.

If you follow these practices, you will probably never have an issue with a corrupted card.