Macbook startup problem

I bought a used 2007 Macbook two years ago.

The original discs were not included. No problems.

Then I had to print something and ran out of ink. A friend suggested I do it with his HP Photosmart D101. I tried. Did not work. I went online to get the driver for the HP. While it was installing, the Mac froze. Shut it down and now it goes to the gray screen with the Apple logo and there's no spinning gears and it tries to restart itself exactly every five minutes. I tried the safe install trick and holding down the power button to reset the RAM. No change.

I went to the man who sold it and he says that the operating system got corrupted by the driver and we need to do a backup and a reinstall of the OS.

Is he correct?

If he is correct, is this a routine process? Do I keep my MacMail emails? Do I keep my settings? Anything that I lose? Any other suggestions for me to try, and any dangers? Should I send it to Apple?

I ask, as like many, I took care of the Mac and did not abuse it, and did not bother with backups and now I have a LOT of data there that I cannot afford to lose.

Please reply soon before I send it to him to be repaired

If he does a backup and reinstall, you won't lose anything. Just make sure that he does in fact backup your data first before reinstalling the operating system. And yes, you should have been making backups.

Thanks.

I do have a Mac Mini, too.

If I attach the two of them together with Firewire, may I begin to transfer some files from the Macbook to the Mini?

The Mini is also crammed full and can only take a few files, yet I wanted to transfer what I could of the most important files before handing the Macbook over to anybody

Do you have an external hard drive? That would be the best way to backup your files before handing over the MacBook. Otherwise, I suppose you'll have to make do with what space you can spare on the Mini.

I do have an external drive but I cannot access the Macbook as it will not boot. I thought that attaching the Macbook to the Mini would allow the Mini to see the Macbook as a drive and then allow me to use the Mini to take files from the Macbook to the Mini and that would require me buying a special Firewire to Firewire cord to join them.

So that is why I asked, before I spent the money. Maybe a USB to USB will work, too.

I mean, would that work, at all? I want to get as many things as possible before handing it over

Attach the external hard drive to the Mini and then use Firewire Target Disk Mode to access the MacBook. Once you've made the connection, copy the files to the external hard drive that's attached to the Mini.