Broken screen and I need to back up data

[asphalt-proof]

My friend's son dropped his Macbook off his loft bed the other day. As a result, he broke the LCD screen to the point that everything is just black. Every thing else seems to be ok (you can hear the hard drive spool up and the start up process seems to be ok)

I told him he will want to back up all his data before sending it off to IresQ.
What is the process for hooking up the MB to an external monitor? Does he need a miniDVI cord? Will it automatically see the monitor and display to it on startup? Thanks for any information.

 

[MultiFinder17]

What kind of MacBook is it? Is it one of the brand-spankin' new ones, or an older one? Easy way to check is to look at the bottom. If it's rubbery stuff with a big Apple logo, then it's a new one. Older ones are white plastic with a removable battery.

If it's a new one, you'll need one of these guys:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB572Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU1NDg
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB570Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU1NTE

Older one? One of these will do the trick:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/M9320G/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU1MzA
http://store.apple.com/us/product/M9321G/B?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU1NjQ

 

[flatfoot]

If the MacBook has a FireWire port, you can just boot it into target mode by holding the "t" key during startup.
When you hook it up to another Mac then using a FireWire cable, it will be displayed as an external hard drive and you can backup everything you need.

 

[l.a.rossmann]

I would recommend not shipping it with the hard drive. This is the safest route.

I'd plug the drive into another machine and make an image of it so it is 100% restore-able in the case of any loss.

 

[XboxMySocks]

First shine a flashlight on it or something to see if it's just the backlight that's broken, and if you still cannot see anything then you will need to replace the inverter AND the screen.

 

[sonspot]

not sure why you would need to replace the inverter and the screen, if the inverter is work leave it alone, i just paid $60 last week for a lg lcd and replaced it myself.

could be GPU?, lucky for me the lcd worked with 1000 cracks, so i only replaced the screen..