Text documents burned to dvd with I-DVD; Can they be recovered?

Last summer I switched MacBooks with a relative. She burned my documents with I-DVD (as I now know is the wrong way to burn such files), and now they are not viewable. The files seem to be there individually, as each has a file size different from each other and comparable to what the should be from what I remember them being, but when I go to open them (say with Microsoft word) all that shows are square characters.

Is there a way to recover these documents? The original laptop has since had Leopard installed (had been Tiger), and has actually been sold to another person. I checked out a company named Drive Savers, but I would never have the money they would ask for their services ($800 - $1400!). The information is important to me on a sentimental purpose.

Any help is very greatly appreciated.

Anonymous2009-04-14T00:10:05Z

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