I work with both apple computers and pc's the two are very different.
The short version is you can't use a x86 processor OS to run Apple's PPC
processor.

There are live cd's for mac's with a G3 or better ( you can't use the cd you use for your pc )
There are several distros out there for PPC ( Apple ) that will run live-from cd.
Gentoo is one that gets mentioned alot athough I haven't found it easy to use.

Your friend might be better off finding someone with a working mac, and using the ethernet
port ( alll macs have them ) to read his files. It's pretty simple with a mac- I've done it.
but I don't remember the exact keystrokes necessary. A working mac's help program will tell you how to
set it up.