1 Dec

Actually removing a stuck CD or DVD from MacBook is pretty easy if you know how. Before sending your MacBook to get the stuck disc out, try the steps below and it might save your time and money!
Here are a few ways on how to eject a stuck CD or DVD from MacBook.
1. If you have a mouse, or mighty mouse, reboot the MacBook, press and hold the mouse click.
2. If you don’t have a mouse, you can press and hold the trackpad/touchpad button. It’s the same method as above but this is for people who don’t have a mouse.

3. Since the disc is being read in an infinite loop, you can try using a small cardboard or even a name card and stick it in until it touches the disc to stop it from reading. Press the Eject key few times. An example of a good cardboard is a battery pack cardboard.

4. Some people had success in leaving the MacBook turned on for around 10 minutes. It will eventually boot up and the stuck CD/DVD will automatically eject.
5. One final method is to tilt the MacBook 45 degrees forward and pressing the eject key.
Good luck in removing a stuck disc in your MacBook! Well I got mine out ![]()
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104 Responses for "How To Eject a Stuck CD or DVD from MacBook SuperDrive"
Thanks, I’d definitely try one of these steps next time if I would to face a problem like this =/
Didn’t know that macbook doesn’t have an emergency eject..
may I ask how do u make the pictures to zoom in when u click it? and default it will fit in to the post..
That’s “Enlarger” plugin for Wordpress.
Don’t get a Mac, full stop =D
Thanks!
Thanks a lot! Pressing and holding the trackpad button seemed to do the trick for me.
I’ve tried all combinations. My leopard CD was stacked inside and all it did was install the software upgrade. I cannot boot. I’ve tried all possibilities. holding the trackpad button do the job for me. Many thanks from a switcher.
- Sato
Ejecting a disc when all else fails
If you’ve tried all the usual methods of ejecting a CD or DVD disc from your computer’s optical drive, there are some manual methods you can try.
First, quit all applications that are using files on the disc. Then try one of these alternate methods:
Choose Apple menu > Restart and hold the mouse or trackpad button down until the disc ejects.
If your drive has an emergency eject hole, put the computer to sleep and insert a large, straightened paper clip in the small emergency eject hole of the drive (the location varies, depending on the drive). Push firmly until the disc ejects.
Use Open Firmware to eject the disc if all other methods fail (this may not work on all computers). To use this method, you have to start up and briefly use the computer using Open Firmware, not the standard Mac OS X desktop.
To eject a disc using Open Firmware:
Restart the computer.
When you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Command-Option-O-F keys. (The Command key has an Apple on it.)
Release the keys when you see a white screen that says “Welcome to Open Firmware.”
At the prompt, type:
eject cd
Press Return, then wait a few seconds. The disc drive should eject the disc, and “ok” appears on the screen when the action is complete.
Type:
mac-boot
Press Return.
Your computer starts up normally and you see the familiar Mac OS X desktop.
I have a DVD stuck in my Macbook. It’s a 13inch one so the disc drive is on the right hand side instead of the front. The disc is stuck in there. When I hit the eject button I can hear the drive trying to eject it but it’s like something is blocking it from coming out. Any suggestions?? Help!!!!!
You can also hold down the eject key while turning the system on.
i know a much easier way to eject a CD or DVD thats stuck, just use a burning program, I use Toast. All I had to do was open the Toast application add a file to burn and click burn, it will then say something along the lines of \”This disc cannot be burnt please insert a new disc\” and it will then eject the stuck CD!
I tried the holding down the mighty mouse key and it worked. Thanks
Thank you so much. The 45 degree+ straighten a paper clips and put it in the driver worked for me…. Thanks……
Sue
my god… the first day i get my mac…
the disc got stuck…
so bad…
T_T ayudeenmmee!!! tengo un macbook pro! con menos de 1 semana! y se me quedo atascado un disco! que no deja que el equipo arranque!! he intentado todo para sacarlo! pero ya no se que hacer!! estoy desesperado! ese portatil me a costado una vida! y cuando al fin lo tengo! me pasa esto!!! saludos!!.. gab0×1@hotmail.com
All this information is in the booklet that comes with all Macs
Anyone kinow how to fix your mac when it crashes after failing to install Boot Camp?
What about when your done installing Windows in BootCamp and it asks you to eject? But the eject button won\’t work because you need the BootCamp drivers which are on the install disk which you then use when you start up Windows.
gracias vieja me salvastes la vida ya no podia sacar un cd
to ‘bob’, restart your mac and hold down the options key (alt) and there will be an options page of where to boot from, make sure you chose mac. then go back into boot camp. make sure that you create a drivers disk, then make sure the partition will be big enough for what you need in windows, and follow the guidelines in boot camp. when it asks insert the windows disk and the press continue, and it will do its stuff… a blue screen will load and eventually it will ask you what partition you want to put windows onto.. make sure you select C:/ if you dont you’ll struggle.
and for those that find they cannot boot up into mac os to select eject from the menus, also restart and hold down the options key (alt) then when the images come up selct OSX or mac OSX.
I had similar CD stuck issue and it seems to problem with CD drive, is there any apple store in chennai, banglore? pls let me know
@ Jijack
Plug in an external mouse with two buttons. Open up “My Computer” or “Computer” (depending on if you installed “Windows XP” or “Windows Vista”) and select “Eject” from the menu.
OMG-It WORKED- I took it it several people who wanted to
take my computer for repair. I tried all of your methods several times, then after i put a thick card in and tilted it and pushed eject, took out the card-out popped the CD- Many thanks.
Thanks, Holding down the mouse button on my MACbook while booting worked for me
Holy crap, that worked. I just bought my macbook a few days ago and one of my cd’s got stuck. Thanks for the tips.
Kudos to you!!! I stuck ever so gently a piece of cardboard from a battery packet… touched it on the CD and pushed the eject button a couple of times while coaxing out the stuck CD… Whoo hoo it works… now I don’t have to visit the Apple people!
for older macbook (not intel)
1) boot in OPEN FIRMWARE using
command-option-O-F
2) type in ‘eject cd’ without quotes
and hit enter
3) type ‘mac-boot’ without quotes
and hit enter
thanks a lot you saved my day,i had a dvd stucked inside my macbook pro and i followed the instrution above and it works. i think it was the battery paper that did the job,any way thanks a lot you are the best.
its friday night and i spent the last hour trying to get this stuck cd out of my drive. Eventuall got it out by turning on computer, tilting it and pressing eject. Bingo it worked. Thank you for saving my weekend.
Raymond,
You saved my day!!! Thanks for the info@!
Gr Frans
Hi,
Ive just got my macbook pro….and a superdrive along with it. However, when I plug the superdrive into the USB, macbook pro fails to recognize superdrive. I thought it would be plug and play but obviously that is not the case. The cd in the external drive whizzes and then gets stuck. I can take it out using one of the methods mentioned above..but then my question is ….how do I get my macbook pro to recognize superdrive. Is there a driver that is required that I need to install prior to plugging in superdrive ? Where can I get this driver from ? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Many thanks
M
try F12 button works for me
The 45 degree angle worked like a charm. I was also pressing N so I’m not sure which did the trick, but it’s out!!
As a Mac tech, all good and useful ideas.
Here’s another:
Open a terminal window and use Disk Recorder Util:
drutil tray eject
My DVD could’nt play it would only go in half way and when the tech guy at my dad’s work tried to put it in he got it in but with firce and it was stuck. This info really helped thank you so much.
ya the same thing as victoria and Monica happened to us. well thanks. p.s. Victoria and Monica if you two visit this site again to see our comments well hey you two sound cute! L8r
Thank you soooo much!!! Sheer panic, now i can sleep peacefully.
You saved me a ton of headache.
Bless you!
wow thats a cool trick man….
I have the Aluminum MacBook. I forgot to eject the disc after finishing some software installing that required a restart. It would only read from the disc. Clicking down on the track pad during boot worked for me. COOL!!!
Thank you so much. Got a CD stuck just now and your method saved me getting even more annoyed with myself and even more tears, so thank you.
Perfect. I owe you one. My computer is back…
You are brilliant!!! Thank you for your help.
OMFG I’m so fucking pissed with my macbook pro… I can’t install anything or it can’t read any shit at all.. and the worst part is that the cd drive can only eject in mac and not windows… wtf???
Do you know my problem?
hey, my macbook is in the question mark flashing mode. i put in the wrong disc (just a blank cd) and it wouldn’t come out. i tried holding the eject button while starting, holding the mouse button while starting, f12, c, x, command s… everything i could find on the internet. ultimately, I got it out by holding the eject button while starting and shoving cardboard in as far as possible… hope that helps.
Thanks a lot, guy,
you just prevented me from completely disassembling m shiny new macbook aluminium because of a wrecked xp-disc i tried to bootcamp with.
Thanks!
Philipp
First of all thks for the tips the cardtrick worked like a charm.
But after all that i tought my problems would be over But
Everytime i try to bootup now he keeps trying to boot from the Sdrive and i instantly hear the drive trying to eject(when there isnt even a disk in there anymore). My screen stays blank nontheless and nothing happens.i tried all the commands and nothing works.
Does anybody have any ideas??
thks in advance
Gracias!! Lo de mantener el click pulsado me ha funcionado, estaba empezando a agobiarme
thank you so much man! i did it ^^
Thank you so much! Ok, so stuck a piece of cardboard, tilted the macbok and then rebooted
This worked for me!!!
i know a much easier way to eject a CD or DVD thats stuck, just use a burning program, I use Toast. All I had to do was open the Toast application add a file to burn and click burn, it will then say something along the lines of \\”This disc cannot be burnt please insert a new disc\\” and it will then eject the stuck CD!
I opened iTunes and chose some songs to burn to a CD knowing I had a DVD stuck
it would ask me to eject. I still had a problem but, I went with another persons advice and stuck a card in the slot so the disk would not turn thus not being read. After a few times
of doing this and also holding down the eject key another window popped up in iTunes
asked if I wanted to eject disc. I clicked yes and Walla disc was ejected. What a nightmare
this has been. Thanks to Dani for the help… Howard
Thanks for the cardboard trick. Looking at the fornt of my MacBook Pro I saw that the upper part of the case was a little bent downwards which prevented the DVD from ejecting. Problenm is that the case has to be repaired (replaced?), at least I don’t need to walk around with a DVD in the slot.
Thanks for the advice! Restarting with the mouse button worked for me.
Then another DVD got stuck and I didn’t want to restart while I was in middle of a lenghty download so I think I found a new way:
Like before, I couldn’t get any apps to recognize the disk inside. Tried DVD Player, FrontRow etc. And eject button didn’t work.
But then I tried the Disk Utility from Applications/Utilities. I selected the dvd drive on the right hand panel and the Utility showed an eject button on the top panel. And that worked! Whew!
Thanks for the tip! The cardboard trick worked for me too, except I used a visiting card. Also, my problem was more complicated as my Keyboard and Trackpad are non-functional.
Thanks so much for the advice. I am a chemist in training and decided to use Proactiv\’s face toner since I didn\’t have any rubbing alcohol. However, the major ingredient (some sort of long chain alcohol) along with the polymers in solution caused a film on the disk and enabled my computer to read the disk. I just stuck a piece of cardboard in the disk drive and waited for the disk to stop rotating and then repeatedly pressed the ejection button on the keyboard. Finally a box appeared on my screen that asked which task I want to perform and I selected to eject. It worked like magic!
hey dude, m one of your reader. i have a favor to ask u to write more on osx
…. will ya ?
The battery cardboard trick worked! I was getting very anxious that the DVD wasn’t going to come out. Thank you!!!
Hi all,
Even for my MBP, DVD is stuck inside. My MBP boots and respond to eject button. DVD tries to eject but it is not coming out. When I tried to insert CC to try CC trick I noticed that card is not getting inserted in the middle of disc drive. It goes in from left side and very slight from right of disc drive. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Hitesh
Thank you so much!!
Thank U so much for different ideas. I was also in same problem that my cd was stuck in my mac book. Finally it came out.Friends it is worth to read all.
Judging by the wealth of responses, this is a common problem with MacBooks. It has also happened to me once. My solution was to squeeze Fairy Liquid (dishwashing fluid) into the CD opening, then I left the laptop to soak overnight in a sink of warm soapy water. The next morning I gently banged the rear of the MacBook repeatedly with a large hammer until the tip of the CD slid out the front. I could then insert a long nail into the CD opening and with some angular movements force the remainder of the CD out of the MacBook. It worked like a charm! Imagine my disappointment when I powered up my MacBook and the damn thing failed to start. The must have been something else wrong with the lap top as well. Talk about bad luck! Two problems at the same time. Shaking and knocking the laptop did not seem to help so I had to take it back to the Apple store (it was only a week old). I could not believe the response of the Apple \”geniuses\”. They said they could not fix it and that it was not covered by the guarantee. Bloody cheek!! Now I am going to have to go back to my Commodore 64
I have the black macbook and the ticket/battery card didn\’t work for me, it stopped it, but still couldn\’t get it out. The 45 degree angle eject tip didn\’t work either. I rebooted and held down on the touch pad and it finally got me to my desktop and stopped the DVD from spinning, so I went to iTunes to \”burn a disc\” and it told me to insert a blank one and spit out the stuck DVD!! Oh yeah, my computer was on for at least 5-10min. Kinda took a while!! HOPE THIS HELPS MY FELLOW MACBOOK USERS!!
Just wanted to chime in that this worked for me! I have an Intel based Macbook. I’ve always had some problems getting DVDs to eject – they never spit out far enough so once I eject it, it goes right back inside. Usually if I take a q-tip moistened with a little running alcohol and run it along the opening it will help. Also, I generally do have to tip my laptop on its side to let gravity do its job. This time, though, it wasn’t even *trying* to eject the dvd. I had just burned something to disk, which was successful (from what I’ve read, seems like unsuccessfully burning a dvd or cd seems to cause this problem.) Every time I would hit the eject button, the image would flash like it was going to eject then….nada. No noises, even. The disk was no longer even spinning, there was just no response at all.
Anyway, I turned it off, let it sit for about a minute and turned it back on – pressing the trackpad button the entire time. It tried to eject after about 45 seconds, but was sucked back in. Once OS X was starting to load, I tried just hitting the eject button (with laptop on its side) and the stupid thing finally spit out.
Thanks so much for this post!
I just did number 5! AND IT WORKED! Thanks so much!!!
This was an extensive explanation and it helped me get out the nasty DVD (through the card method), thanks man.
seriously, nothing on this page, or any other page was working..but one good pound on top of the disc drive actually shot it right out lol
I had this exact problem the other day. The way i did was shut down the macbook. then turn it on, as soon as u have pressed the power button press and hold the C key until the disk ejects. works a charm
holy crap that cardboard thing just worked for me. i’ve been fighting with this disc for a couple days now. thanks!
ok it worked, but my computer wont read discs anymore!
I was too exhausted to get up to get my mouse or cardboard, so I just tried tilting my MacBook forward 45 degrees and pressing eject – “Poof!” – out it came after several stubborn days! Thanks a million!!!
Thank you guys for the help, Clicking the trackpad on startup ejected my windows disk which hung up in there in an unsuccessful attempt at using bootcamp.
You can also try using Disk Utility.
In the utilities folder in Applications (Finder>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility) and click on the super drive and press eject!
worked for me on a macbook!
Thanks so much! You just saved me a trip to the apple stor!
this solution page worked when all else failed.
Ahhh thank you soooooooo much for the advice! Jusst held down the trackpad on the new aluminium mb
relieved now, and ppl with the bootcamp problem hold down ctrl and choose macintosh. thanks again!
thanks for the tip. I finally got it out, wooo hoooo.
Thanks — I had just about given up on getting the disc out of my black macbook.
it didn’t work
i did number 3 it worked! haha. thanks a bunch
Thanks, Man! You saved my life!
THANKS!!! I inserted the cardboard and it came out in about 10 seconds! What a lifesaver!!
This page solved it! I had a music CD that wouldn’t eject. It didn’t effect start-up.
**> I leaned the MacBook toward me 90 degrees so it was on its front edge. Keyboard perpendicular to the table. Pressed the eject button. OUT IT POPPED! I grabbed immediately so it wouldn’t hop back in.
Thank you!
a combo of 3, 4 & 5 did the trick for us! thanks!
Thank you man work Good for me…
God continually to give you idea to seek
that why i don’t lie mac, its to much “secure” lol
I placed a small DVD from my Handcam into my MacBook CD drive .. it won’t come out.. I tried most of the suggestions except the cardboard… where do you stick the cardboard…
Kathy
For everyone that couldn’t get one of these methods to work, what my wife figured out what to use a credit card to move a piece of the superdrive out of the way in the front (rightish) of the drive. It was stopping the CD from going in or going out. I know this really sounds like a true hardware issue, but once we physically moved the piece out of the way (by gently sliding a card underneath it and moving it toward the screen) the CD came right out….3 hours later!!
I was starting to get really worried, till i found this page and all your tips! I turned off the macbook, then held down the eject button and turned the power back on. I finally got the damn disk out! WOOOHOOO!
It just so happens that, this inability to eject stuck removable disks is a incompetent security feature in a macbook so, the idea of Leopard as the worlds most advanced operating system mostly is false although there isn’t a better alternative to it. What you can do to eject a stuck disk is to turn off the MacBook with the superdrive and reboot it whilst holding down the alt-option key to display the Boot Camp menu from where you can press the eject button on the MacBook at the top right. The only time this don’t let you eject the disk is if it is physically stuck for example, as if it is stuck in with glue in which case then, take it to a Apple after sales service center to get the removable disk ejected. So, as a general rule though, it always works to reboot to the Boot Camp menu to eject stuck disks since, its Leopard that stuck in the disk as opposed to what you may have thought as if it was the hardware in the MacBook is not the case normally. Did it all work? if so or not still, you can comment on it below.
i didn’t have cardboard so i folded up an old letter and had a good poke and the disc got stuck between the layers of paper and i pulled it out, with no damage to drive hope that helps! also i had an installation disc stuck which i didn’t check was only suitable for windows and thats why it could not be read or ejected (i think!) and i tried all the other tricks above and they didn’t work. folded paper all the way!!x
thanx! cardboard helped.
thank u very much!
thanks, the 45 degree trick worked!
Thank you!!
so my mac doesnt even show it has a cd in it!! it wont eject it and i cant try to burn or run the cd bc it is blank!! any suggestions????
The cardboard (I used cover of a glossy paper back book) worked very well! I also combined that trick with the 45degree angle thing.. and it worked!! FINALLY! I tried all of the eject buttons and forced eject key method, and this was the only thing that worked! THANKS!
your a life saver was racking my brains for hours thanks dude!
thanks sir!
I did it! It worked, I jammed cardboard paper, and it took a few times but it worked in the end, thanks for the help!
Your tip 3 worked – thank you so much for putting your wisdom out there on the internet!
Interesting and informative. But will you write about this one more?
Disk ejected… Thanks for posting the tip!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
KRETIN i tray your method and it worksss perfectly, the dvd eject inmidiatly, cause i tray 2 forms an it doesnt work, yours is easy and fast, for my now is the best, this is it:
from Applications/Utilities. I selected the dvd drive on the right hand panel and the Utility showed an eject button on the top panel. And that worked!.
thank u KRETIN
BUT noww i have one cuestion can i put the dvd that was stuck, again cause i need to install the program, someone can answer me, please, thank u
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