I would certainly tell you not to feel like an idiot as the object of the exercise is to get your data back. How you achieve that doesn't matter, even if you stumble upon a solution.
Even though it sounds like you may not need any further help I'll go ahead anyway although you didn't provide a lot of info. ![:)]()
Firstly, because your card probably had corrupted boot sectors as opposed to you having physically deleted your files, you would need to have selected "Scan for non deleted files" in Recuva's settings. That's assuming that your card had been given a drive letter by Windows.
Secondly, I wouldn't have suggested using Lazesoft to "Image" the card. We hadn't reached the stage of trying to repair the card or search for the lost partition, which is when I would have linked the original poster to "USB Image Tool".
USB Image Tool: (Freeware)
Repairing or trying to undelete the partition on a card involves writing to it. Hence the precaution of making a back up Image first. If one process fails, the Image can be restored to try something else.
In the case of a memory card (or flash drive or external hard drive) suddenly becoming "RAW" or flagged by Windows to be in need of formatting, then usually the files on that storage device will be completely intact and in many cases it would be possible to either repair the corrupt boot sectors, or to search for, find, and restore the partition the files are residing in.
I've done this successfully both to camera cards and drives many times. Sadly this option doesn't seem to catch on with many folk who seem to think that trying to recover their files by scanning with recovery software is the only option.
Anyways, if you've recovered all of your files, well done. If you're still in need of some help, by all means come back to the topic.
EDIT: Almost forgot, I have tried out "Zero Assumption Recovery" myself, and suggested it's use as an option ...
http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=39946&do=findComment&comment=242629