Question Abt Long Expousre/Night Photos

Hi all! Excuse my cluelessness but I was Fiddling with My new XTI & was having a hard time taking photos of a run down shed I spotted on my drive home. First of My General setting were , TV / 7 sec/ F9 as i recall but as far as metering & exposures I forgot what it was, sorry. My problem was It just wouldn't focus and take the shot(green dot blinking). the mood that night was there were no light source at all in the frame plus the cloudy sky that night wasn't helping at all. is there a way around this? is there as specific metering mode I should be on in this type of situation? is my XTi deffective? hehe excuse my paranoya. My S80 didnt have any problems when it comes to long exposures at night even pitch black it would take photos. Any comments and advice would be greatly appreciated.

thansk all!

Shine a flashlight or car headlights on the shed to assist in the focusing. (Be sure to turn off the flashlight/car headlights before taking the photo )

If all else fails, set the distance manually on the lens and close down a bit.

Metering and autofocus are two separate things. Your camera was unable to autofocus because there wasn't enough light. You need to either use manual focus, or add some light to allow autofocus to work.

One way would be to pop up the flash, half-press (which will fire the AF assist burst), then push the flash back down so it won't fire.

In any event, fiddling with the metering will have no effect at all on the camera's ability to autofocus.

Thank you both for your comments ! I had a hunch that lighting was the culprit well user knowledge too but gotta start somewhere. Thanks alot!

and if you have a friend with you (and if possible) get them to stand next to the object you want to photograph and shine a flash light directly at you.
I found that to really help when focussing