This is me geeking right out, folks, so feel free to skip ahead unless file retrieval makes you tingle.
So I burned a bunch of large files onto a DVD, using Nero. Nero reported that all was well, and when I checked the DVD, the files seemed to be there. Then I deleted them off my harddrive.
The next time I popped that DVD into the drive, though, it showed as blank, with a 0 size. Damn.
A closer look at the DVD with file recovery software indicated that the filenames indeed existed, but I still couldn't pull them off.
So I scritched my head for a moment or nine, and here's what I tried:
I opened Nero again, and told it to copy the DVD for me. Instead of burning the copied image to media, I saved it to my HD as an image file. Nero uses a file extension of *.NRG, which is pretty well the same as .ISO, so I renamed the file to image.iso, and then used WinRAR to treat it like an archive file, opened it up, and woo! there were all my files.
I extracted them safely to my hard drive, and will now live happily ever after.
And if Google has brought you here because you're experiencing the same problem, I hope it works for you as well.
An anecdote of culture shock. This happened about 6 years ago.
To understand the following, you gotta get that in the queer culture I live and play in, young queer women who are of the butchy variety often dress in clothes usually reserved for young men. Except, with their size and feminine features, they are often not only mistaken for actual men, but sometimes fairly young ones -- like, 17 or 18 year olds, even when the woman in question is, like, 40 or something.
No, I don't get why people can't tell they're women, either. They look like women to me.
Anyhow, I, who at the time am 30 and femme-looking, am in a large chain store with two women age 22 and 23, respectively. They're both wearing baggy jeans, baseball caps, and have short hair.
I check out my purchases, and my friends (in line behind me) are laughing and playing with some of those silly stuffed toys you see near check-out lines. I say to them "I'm going to bring the car around. See you out front?" and I leave.
As I'm putting my key in my car door, a woman storms up to me.
"You can't do that, you know! You can't do that to your children!"
Aroo? I look around. Who the hell is she talking to?
"I'm going to report you! That's what I'm going to do. That store cannot babysit your kids!"
I stare at her, searching deperately for some meaning -- any meaning. What?
She continues, getting all spitty, with shaking finger and all... when in the distance, I see my butchy friends leaving the store, baggy pants and all. Suddenly I get it, and begin whooping with laughter.
Yes. That's it, lady. I have two toddlers in their twenties, one is taller than me, and the other has larger breasts than I do. How remiss of me to leave them alone for a second.
Honestly. Did she even look at us?