Partially Dead Computer for a Hard Drive Dump

So my friend's computer died (kinda) and he was told he needs to dump the hard drive and re-install the OS. However, he would obviously like to save all the things that are on his hard drive, but we haven't been able to boot up onto anything that has allowed us access. He is able to boot up from the OSX disk that came with his computer, but that doesn't work in letting us back up his computer. Is there a way that I can connect my working computer to his and gain access to his hard drive? We both use makes, of course, but his is a year older than mine, buit still a MacBook Pro. Any help with this would be appreciated, though I don't want to pull his hard drive out of the computer... Thanks.

See
[How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661]
It's not clear if your friend's computer is still capable of booting into FireWire target disk mode, but it's worth a try.

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Partially Dead Computer for a Hard Drive Dump

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