Costalegre Jalisco Mexico

I took a ton of photos and a few videos of the Ballet Xalisxo at Villa Obregon Square yesterday evening. During the last video attempt, the camera shut down and went into PROCESSING mode, where it stayed for 40 minutes. Continued to stay there, even trying to shut the camera down did not help. When we finally got home, Vern took out the batteries. Loaded it up with new batteries. It finally shut down and when we attempted to view the photos/videos - it (the camera) requested that we re-format the disk. I plopped it into the laptop - same thing - requesting re-formatting...

Does anyone have the ability to recover these files? I tried downloading some freeware to do that, but no success so far. We have a fairly new laptop with Windows Vista.

Any help is appreciated!
Elke (I think I'm going to bed now...) Verdammte Technik!