Holiday photographs viewable on the camera screen and subsequently not visible at all. The card had developed sector-level damage. The memory was removed and read directly, and the missing images processed back out of the raw data.
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The sequence matters here. The photographs were taken, they were viewable on the camera screen, and then they were not visible at all. Nothing was deleted and nothing was formatted deliberately.
Images that were visible and then vanish generally indicate the card's own structures failing rather than the image data being lost. The camera reads the card's directory to build its preview list; when that directory becomes unreadable, the photographs disappear from view while remaining physically present in the flash.
Assessment found sector-level damage on the card. With defects affecting the regions holding the file system structures, the card could no longer present its contents to the camera or to a computer.
The image data itself was intact. What had failed was the card's ability to describe what it held.
The missing photographs were processed out of the imaged data and returned to the client.
Where the file system has been lost, images come back identified by content rather than by original filename. Capture dates recorded inside the files by the camera survive that process, so chronological order can be reconstructed even when names cannot.
Photographs that were visible and then vanish usually indicate the card's directory structures failing. The images are frequently still physically present.
Every further photograph written lands in space the old ones occupy, and you have no control over which. Put it aside and use a different card.
Camera repair functions and Windows format prompts both write new structures over the ones describing your images.