Sorry to launch straight in with a plea for help, but any advice you can give me will be very gratefully received.

My 6 year old mac froze last week; I tried various thing to get it going again but it wouldn't, so I ended up pulling the plug

Now, on start up, I have the broken folder icon. Most of my stuff is backed up but there are one or two things I'd hoped to retrieve using target disk mode, before reinstalling Tiger. (Or trying to reinstall Tiger.)
W
Using a borrowed macbook and following instructions on the Apple site, I did a Firewire link to my mac. BUT the macbook isn't showing any connection to my mac.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is the problem in my mac affecting the firewire connection in target disk mode? In which case, do I just need to wave goodbye to the files I'd hoped to retrieve (last 3 months photos of my children - everything else is backed up) and hope I can reinstall Tiger and get my computer working again?

Thank you for any help you can give me :-)