[dfbennett]

My 1ghz G4 had an issue with a dead inverter the other day, replaced it and all went well. Then the screen went again (the backlight would come on and off intermittently). I decided to bite the bullet and get a new iMac. Got the new one running and grabbed most of my stuff off the old one (safari bookmarks I think are the only thing I forgot). Now it won't boot past the apple logo (and the backlight is indeed out again). Any ideas if I can get the few little things off the drive via firewire target disk mode, etc? Do you need it to boot to be able to do that? It's not critical that I get the stuff (though if I'm going to try and sell it for parts I need to be able to wipe the drive). Any ideas? I can't even get the disc tray to open!

[Cold Warrior]

Firewire target disk mode doesn't need a bootable OS X system, so yes, you should be able to put it in FW TDM. Hold down 't' at the startup chime then connect it to your new iMac over a Firewire cable. Let's hope your HDD isn't dead, otherwise you won't be able to read some or all of the data you want even in TDM.

[dfbennett]

Thanks I'll give it a shot. Luckily I got probably about 99.5% of the stuff last night, it's just a few random little non-essential stuff I forgot.