IPad Data Recovery Question

[ahope]

For some reason, almost all but approximately 15 icons/apps are missing suddenly from my IPad 2, including the major icons such as Mail, Camera, Notes, etc. Luckily after rebooting several times in a complete panic, somehow the Settings icon is back but nothing else returned. I unfortunately have not backed up to Itunes because four family members sharing one Windows computer to backup devices ultimately made everything jumbled up (our fault for not knowing what to do, or how to do it correctly). However, since this happened to my IPad, my sister got a new MacBook and gave me her old MacBook (10.6.8). Finally my question is, assuming data is somehow still on my IPad even though I can't see it, how can I safely recover data using my MacBook? PhoneView? iExplorer? iMazing? Which is the easiest and offers the highest chance of recovering data? What I want from my IPad more than anything else are my photographs and Notes, that's my MAIN priority even above my music and videos and even apps. I don't mind resetting it if need be, but I want to retrieve as much as I possibly can from it beforehand. As you can tell I am not tech savvy at all and would appreciate any advice. Thank you in advance!