Corrupt SD card (Nikon DSLR)?

I was using my Nikon D7000 camera when I turned on the camera it said "Card Error". Some how the SD card got corrupted, and it won't show up on my computer. There's a lot of photos on the card that I want to recover.

How do you deal with such a situation? Should I try to fix the corrupted SD card, or just recover the photos and format the card? Which is more likely to work? And what programs do you recommend for each (cost is not an issue)?

Your help is appreciated!

Added (1). Thanks for that.
PhotoRec couldn't detect the SD card at all. I tried many different recovery programs and none could open the SD card.
I tried formatting it in Windows, but Windows can't format it. Is there anyway/software to force format the card?
BTW, it's a Patriot LX 16GB class 10 SD card.

Added (2). No recovery program could do anything with the SD card.
I can't even format it so it seems like it's completely dead.
It still has warranty so I will return it and get a new one.

Thanks to everyone for your help and tips. It's much appreciated…

Try running Chkdsk on the card. Chkdsk is a Windows program on your PC, and you have to run it from the command line.

So you didn't follow instructions for SD HC cards did you? Did you even read the instructions? Of course not you just assumed you knew exactly what you were doing and like a million others now has learned the hard way.

Here's the drill sport. Shoot today, upload today, format the card in the camera. You do not use these cards as storage devices because they will eventually fail… Get where I'm going. Cameras are not designed to be viewers - there's other things around for showing off to your friends.

If you want to keep buying cards over and over then keep doing the same thing. There's no recovering anything on that card, it's done - lesson learned.

Try this free program to recover your photos. I have had some success.

You must not take anymore pictures on your card.
You will need a card reader either on your computer or an external USB card reader? Put the card in the card reader, open the recuva program, the welcome to the recuva wizard will open, click on next.next box, choose 'pictures', click on next, next box choose 'on my media card' click next. Check 'enable deep scan' click on start. Wait, for it to do it's magic.

You need to use a card reader either one already in your computer (some have one, some don't). Or buy an external USB card reader. They are around 10.00 and can be found at walmart, bestbuy, frys, probably target.
The problem with built in card readers is that they will usually only read up to a 2G card.

I was not able to recover photos by hooking the camera up to the pc with the usb cord, it just won't work.

This is the important part. Choose the pics you want to recover, then choose recover, a box comes up asking where you want to save to. Choose documents/my pictures or wherever you want to save your pictures too. The pictures ONLY save to your pc and not the card.

Then format your card in the camera, this should be done with every major download to avoid corruption.

I'm assuming you are using windows xp or vista, I don't know if this works with mac or win7.

Looks like your card is corrupted. If it's a Sandisk card, you should have a slip of paper which directs you to their RescuePro recovery program and a key number for the program. Otherwise, you can use any number of recovery programs. PhotoRec has worked well for me on thrashed hard drives.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

Some general rules to live by:
* Always download you photos to your computer and back them up after a shoot.
* Format your card in the camera after downloading your images.
* Use name brand cards.

Additional details… Looks like your card is bad. If the computer won't format it, there isn't much hope for it. Patriot should be a good brand, but there are the rare exceptions where you get an early failure.