It does sound strange - have you got a card reader? That might work. It looks like a usb stick but has a hole in the side where you put the sd card in and the computer reads from it that way. It's intended for computers that don't have an sd card slot but would work anyway. At least that way you could cut and paste all the photos off the card onto the laptop and then put them back on a new sd card later.
This one is a good make and not too expensive
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-m...sd+card+reader