Problem with camera memory card

The memory card in my Canon Sureshot suddenly showed no images whilst in the camera. I had at least thirty pictures on it at the time. The camera was working perfectly. On returning home I have put the card into my PC and it shows six folders with the same name, all reportedly of 36gb size. The card is only 256mb. These folders all contain empty subfolders and exe files with undecipherable names. I have run antivirus on the card and it is clean. I have also run Recuva, but in cannot find any files that are recoverable. Is it possible to recover the lost pix? I live in Ireland and was on holiday in Morocco so they cannot be replaced!

There are no sure fire answers in this area, it is very much the luck of the draw, and there are many risks with trying many various tools in the hope one may work, and ultimately they may be lost, so you need to be prepared to lose them (worst case) if you decide to try yourself.

As you have probably found there are many tools claiming to recover files, but not that many free ones that can manage the job from what I have seen, more so when used on removable media, I don't have any specific tool to suggest that I know will work, but I have used GetDataBack with much success, although I must add I've never tried it on removable media, and it's not free either, so time and money wise it may be wisest to take it to someone who does a recovery service.

Now if you feel you want to take a risk and try yourself here are some results from a search, but I know nothing about these programs or how likely they are to work, nor any possible risks they may have, but I have seen nothing bad about them directly:-
Smart Recovery 4.5
DiskDigger
MjM Free Photo Recovery Software

I have also noticed Nero has a recovery section in it's installed files, probably only in the new(er) releases anyway, so check out this if you have Nero, it's in the Nero Toolkit on mine (v9).
But before deciding have a look in local developers shops, many do digital media prints now, and in the back of my mind I suspect I may have seen some that offer a recovery service, sorry I can't offer better advice, but I hope something here helps.

many thanks for your interest. I will try the solutions that you have posted ( I have nothing to lose by trying!) and will post the results since it may help in the future. kind regards, and Happpy New year. Tony

Thanks 8210Guy! I tried all three programs and found the pix using MjM Free Photo Recovery. It works very well and allows full recovery to a directory chosen by the user. Full marks for ease of use. Some of the recovered pix were corrupted (about 6 out of 84) but that was bound to happen I guess and I am very pleased with the results from the other 78!!! Many thanks for your help! Kind regards, Tony

NP, really glad it helped, and as you say a great result considering what could of been, and Thanks for the update, will have to try and remember that tool for future use, but it's great news and glad your happy.