firewire transfer

a couple days ago i tuned on my mac to find a blue screen with a blinking folder with a question mark in the middle of the folder. i bought a firewire so i can transfer my music and pictures to my friends computer so when i re-boot my computer i won't lose all my files. i turned off my computer, hooked up the firewire with my friends mac and turned on my mac while holding "T". the firewire symbol shows up on my computer but my computer doesn't show up on my friends computer. so i can't transfer my files to my friends computer. how do i make the firewire connection work?

What computer does your friend have? Mac? PC? If a Mac which model/Specs?

if you are getting that flashing folder icon at the beginning it sounds like you have a dead hard drive. or the hard drive has bad blocks.

my friend has a Mac OS X version 10.4.11, the exact same model as mine. The flashing folder with a question mark means that something is wrong with my hard drive, but shouldn't i be able to hold "T" while powering up and turn my computer into an external hard drive so i can take some files off of it? I get the bouncing firewire symbol when i power up while holding "T", which means that my computer is now more or less an external hard drive, right? But how come my friends computer doesn't connect with mine when i connect the firewire?