Chosen Solution
I recently got a family member’s MacBook Pro to recover data from, since it was damaged in a home flood. It turns out the the computer still works, for the most part. I used Target Disk Mode to initially clone the hard drive, but I plugged in a display into the MiniDisplay Port and the computer actually runs perfectly fine in clamshell mode. Is there a way that I could diagnose the exact problem, or even repair the computer? Thanks! Also of note, the green light by the webcam does still turn on, but i’ve yet to actually test the video feed. Update: It turns out the backlight is damaged.
See if you can use a flashlight to shine though the Apple logo (poor mans backlight) are you able to see a faint image of the desktop icon’s? If you are you’ve localized the problem down to the backlight circuit. If not you’ll need to pop the bottom cover off to inspect the logic board connection where the display is connected. Take a couple of clear images so we can see and paste them here.
