Formatting memory card for a digital camera?

I have a kodak easyshare c180 digital camera. I used it this past week and have some very important photos on it. Someone thought they'd be smart and remove the card and now it's telling me that it needs to be formatted causing all the pictures on it to be deleted. Losing these photos is not an option. I've tried to open the files through my computer but it's still giving me the format problem. Is there anyway to bypass this just until I retrieve the photos from it?