What are the steps for recovering photo files from Lost.DIR

[ntradd]

My wife's Android 6.0 tablet suddenly stopped working, so I had to reformat and reset it. All of her data was fortunately on an SD card, but when we looked for the "Photos" folder on the SD card (which contained 1000 photos), it was gone. However, the photos are all in the Lost.DIR folder on the SD card. I would like to recover them so that the "Date Shot" info is restored, rather than just add a .jpg extension to all of them. They all have numbers for names, and the created date is December 31, 1979. I've tried numerous recovery apps on my PC and on the tablet, but they either report no files to recover, or they show the files with info intact, but only offer to restore a GB or 2 for free. There must be some simple, free way to restore these files, so I'm hoping someone can help me out. THanks