I wouldn't bother with Linux (as I've tried over a dozen distros myself and didn't like any of them). An external hard drive enclosure is probably your best bet. Trust me, once you get one, you'll use it all the time for backing up your own stuff. :-)
AmigaEd: I've found that I have better luck burning ISO images with Alcohol 120% instead of Nero.
I've heard Nero 6 has a lot of problems with certain burners that Nero 5 didn't have, especially when burning towards the end (outer rim) of the disc.
Cyberus: Also, perhaps if there was support for writing to NTFS partitions with linux, Microsoft would jump on the distro and try to kill it, as NTFS is © Microsoft
NTFS works like a database and writes multiple pieces of data for each access. It's far too complicated (and risky) to reverse-engineer something like that, so I believe the mere technical issues trump the legal issues, anyway.
