IMac G5 failed 10.5 update - won't boot now, spinning wheel

Please help, I bought my mom an iPad because she broke both ankles and is gonna be bed ridden for several weeks, and needed some way to get email, etc.
She has an iMac g5 2ghz non iSight. The iPad needs to be plugged into iTunes to work the first time, but her iMac had 10.4 on it. Well, iTunes requires 10.5 or higher. So i upgraded it and somewhere in the middle the update failed (I suspect a bad DVD). The computer wanted to restart, and since then, it will not boot, just a gray screen with apple logo, and the forever spinning wheel of frustration. I ran through the 10.5 installer again (this time using a different disk and it seemed to complete, and when it restarted at the end, same thing - spinning wheel, not happy.
So I boot off the OS x install DVD, run disk utilities, repair disk finds no errors, repair permissions says one minute remaining but never finishes, it ran all night long and I finally just gave up and turned it off this morning.
I have come to the conclusion that I will be formatting the HD tonight after work. But I need to get all her pictures, emails, and contact list off that drive first. I figure I'll use my old G4 (10.4 I think?) and put her iMac into target disk mode, and hopefully mount the drive to the G4 with the FireWire cable (I pray this works otherwise... Cry)
My main question, please help me out in locating her address book / contact list. She uses the Mac mail app for email. What files and/or folders do I need to copy so that once I format, I can (hopefully) just copy those folders back to the freshly installed OS 10.5, and theoretically make it seem like nothing happened.
Also, any suggestions anyone can offer me that don't involve formatting would be appreciated... But mostly, just need to figure what I need to backup.
Thanks so much, it's been a very difficult few days, and the added stress of this computer is just no good for the entire situation.

Copy her User (home) folder and Applications folder and you should have everything she needs.

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===================
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Message was edited by: den.thed
Man the forum is acting funky tonight, I've bee trying to get in and post a reply for 20 min's.
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IMac G5 failed 10.5 update - won't boot now, spinning wheel

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