Target Disk Mode Frustration

Hi,

My old MacBook is basically on its last legs and not rebooting. Have given up trying to get the thing booted (have gone through all the usual steps), and now trying to use FireWire target disk mode to simply pull what I need off the old one and put it on my wife's MacBook.

The problem is, it's just not happening. I am getting the firewire symbol on my laptop -- but my Mac is not showing up in my wife's Mac's device list, nor on the desktop or disk utilities.

More vexing is that my wife's computer 'realises' it is in target disk mode. ie. when my computer is not hooked up, my wife's sees only that it has a firewire port in 'System Profiler'. When mine IS hooked up to my wife's, the 'firewire' section under 'system profiler' shows that it is in Target Disk Mode when you refresh (Command R).

So, if my Mac is getting the firewire symbol and my wife's Mac is seeing that it is in target disk mode, why can I not find my Mac on my wife's desktop etc?

Can anyone shed any light? Or is it just simply that my Mac's hard disk is actually so far gone that my wife's Mac can't even recognise it as an functioning entity any more?

Grateful any tips.

Cheers,
razza

Or is it just simply that my Mac's hard disk is actually so far gone that my wife's Mac can't even recognise it as an functioning entity any more?

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Very likely this is what's happening. Try removing the hard drive from your MacBook and either place it in a USB carrier or use an adapter to see if you can extract the data that way.