Intel Imac display problems

I have an old intel imac (17 inch white screen) bought just over 5 years ago.  The imac has just 'died', the screen will not display anything.  It will chime on starting up and I can hear activity but nothing displays on the screen.
I returned it to my local Apple store, upon investigation they said the graphics card had gone (£500 to replace) so I bought a brand new iMac a few days ago.
All of my data is backed to up an external hard drive.
I run a database programme on the old iMac called 4D, which has a huge amount of data stored in it (all backed up).
I have installed the most current version of 4D on my new Imac, but it will not open the data on my back-up (error message: data cannot be published).
I have installed my old original version of 4D from my original bought CDs, but again it will not read the data.
The guy in the Apple shop gave me instructions on how to link my old 'dead' iMac, to my MacBook Pro via a Firewire cable, and using Target Disc Mode, I should be able to access the dead iMac hard drive on my MacBook ... have just tried this and the dead iMac hard drive will not show up on my MacBook.  It does not appear on the desktop as suggested by the guy in the Apple shop, nor does it show up in System Preferences > Start Up Disk as an alternative disc to boot from.
What I need to do is access the 4D database on the dead imac, so that I can export the data as a text file, to put into a new application on my new iMac.
Althought the data is backed up to the external hard drive, it is backed up 'in the database' ...  and I need to EXPORT the data, which I cannot do unless I can open the database ... which I can't !
I'm going round in circles with this, so if anyone can please point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.
Many thanks
Rock of Ages.

make sure you execute the instructions for target disk mode properly, because your screen is dead and you won't see the icon displayed.
see here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8443.html
you may have to hold the T longer on the deadhead mac.

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