Read recovered optical disk image file

I have got into a real mess with my data stored on several CD-RW disks and don’t understand the problem. I coppied files to disk-all OK but after formatting HDD from Win XP Home Fat 32 to NTFS and adding only Norton security-I can not read my rom disks. Tried undelete software and only get message “no supported file system found on disk”
Tried recover software apps and can access some but not all files.
Tried Nero 5.5 and can copy Image file to HDD but not all of it and don’t know what to do to be able to access origonal content from image file.
Clearly I am in over my head but I need the data on the cdrom and would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you Sherril