MacBook won't recognize external disk for Time Machine

Help!
My husband now has my old MacBook (white, 2008). It's running the latest version of Snow Leopard.
He also has his old Mac Mini (PowerPC, not Intel). Its optical drive is failing, so I decided he could use it as a TM backup disk.
Last night, I connected it to his MacBook with a FireWire cable, convinced it to start up in Target Disk mode, wiped it clean with Disk Utility, and told Time Machine, "Hey, look, here's a disk for you!". TM immediately began a full backup, which completed successfully. It did a few more little "mini backups" (as TM does) while he was using the computer. When we went to bed, he closed the MacBook but didn't eject the Mini or turn it off.
When I looked at the Mini this afternoon, it was off. I figured it had shut itself down or whatever. I opened his MacBook and started up the Mini, but it doesn't mount and the MacBook can't see it in Disk Utility. (And yes, the very first thing I did was check the FireWire cable's connection, LOL. It's fine.)
So what just happened here? IDEK.
Thanks in advance!

A.Carlo wrote:
The Mini cannot boot up. Since you wiped out its operating system, it's not able to get up and running. It works only while in Target Disk mode, but rebooting it without holding down the T key to enter Target Disk mode pretty much means it's waiting for an operating system to load.
OMG, I don't know how I could be so stupid, because I totally know how Target Disk Mode works! Clearly, I cannot brain today; I have the dumb.
I connected a USB keyboard to it and booted up while holding down the "T" key, and it showed up on the desktop. TM is now backing up.
Thank you!

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Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

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wongkh wrote:
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Roberto 17 wrote:
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hirogliffix,
take a look at this Apple page — in particular, the “Restoring data from Time Machine backups” section and its “Restoring your entire system from a backup” subsection.

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kat.hayes wrote:
I want to use a 3 TB external drive for Time Machine to backup multiple 500GB hard drives in my Macpro. I have lots of large video files from HD cameras.
1. Will Time Machine backup all of the hard drives in the Macpro?
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BootCamp requires the use of XP with SP2. Without SP2 (SP1 or earlier) it either does not install or if installed can produce some odd errors.
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MacBook won't recognize external disk for Time Machine

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