Raymond.CC Blog

Thanks, I’d definitely try one of these steps next time if I would to face a problem like this =/

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..

Don’t get a Mac, full stop =D

Thanks a lot! Pressing and holding the trackpad button seemed to do the trick for me.

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.

You can also hold down the eject key while turning the system on.

I tried the holding down the mighty mouse key and it worked. Thanks

my god… the first day i get my mac…
the disc got stuck…
so bad…

All this information is in the booklet that comes with all Macs

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.

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.

@ 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.

Thanks, Holding down the mouse button on my MACbook while booting worked for me

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!

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.

Raymond,

You saved my day!!! Thanks for the info@!

Gr Frans

try F12 button works for me

As a Mac tech, all good and useful ideas.
Here’s another:
Open a terminal window and use Disk Recorder Util:

drutil tray eject

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

wow thats a cool trick man….

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.

You are brilliant!!! Thank you for your help.

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.

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

thank you so much man! i did it ^^

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 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 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!

The battery cardboard trick worked! I was getting very anxious that the DVD wasn’t going to come out. Thank you!!!

Thank you so much!!

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

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!

This was an extensive explanation and it helped me get out the nasty DVD (through the card method), thanks man.

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

ok it worked, but my computer wont read discs anymore!

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.

Thanks so much! You just saved me a trip to the apple stor!

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 — I had just about given up on getting the disc out of my black macbook.

i did number 3 it worked! haha. thanks a bunch

THANKS!!! I inserted the cardboard and it came out in about 10 seconds! What a lifesaver!!

a combo of 3, 4 & 5 did the trick for us! thanks!

that why i don’t lie mac, its to much “secure” lol

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!!

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.

thanx! cardboard helped.
thank u very much!

Thank you!!

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!

thanks sir!

Your tip 3 worked – thank you so much for putting your wisdom out there on the internet!

Disk ejected… Thanks for posting the tip!

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

I’ve had a disk stuck in there for over a week… I used a combination of holding down the trackpad-bar while booting AND holding the machine at a 45 degree angle (both suggested in the article)… IT WORKED… thanks!!!

I had the same problem but my CD wasn’t being recognized at all by they computer. So, after reading through a few forums I shut down my computer, waited a few seconds and turned it back on. As soon as I hit the power button I held down the track pad key but my macbook started making horrible noises so I let go and decided to press the eject key. Neither worked BUT I heard the CD spin up and realized my computer could read it. Once my computer was fully booted up I took a thin piece of cardboard and stuck it gently in the slot and pressed eject… out pops the disc. I hope this helps someone who had the same issue.

Best post ever, thank you so much m(._.)m

I was attempting to burn a disc on iTunes. I guess this was a disk error because all other discs work fine, yet this one doesn’t? Must try on our iMac, though I don’t want to get that drive stuck too. Also hitting the keyboard right over the SuperDrive then hitting the “Eject” key worked nicely.

great tip thank you, i’d have gone nuts w/o it since mac help didn’t help actually.

Thank you so much for your advice. I looked all over the help systems and discussions and nothing worked. By holding the track bar down and simultaneously putting an envelope in the hard drive to stop the disk from spinning it ejected ending a 6 hour ordeal. We had the exact problem that you described which was that it kept trying to boot from the CD. Now we get to fix a corrupt kernel, but at least we have a fighting chance. So thank you. Very practical advice.

Disk Utility works great. It’s in Utilities folder in Applications.

Just select the DVD driver on the left panel and then press a EJECT button on the top panel

Voila!!!! your stuck CD/DVD will simply come out.

THAT was EASY

Just tried the “45 Degree” approach. THAT worked, after many other unsuccessful attempts. Thanks for the tip!

It seems that if ANY program has the CD loaded that the eject button is not going to work. Several times now I have tracked down the “using” program and upon terminating the mount that program has on the disc I can eject with the button.

I know this is not the problem in all cases… but I’m betting many. This might be a good thing to look into if you have “chronic” problems ejecting the disc.

I love MAC but things like this makes it a bit squishy.
Infinite loop? …….laterz

Hey! The first method worked! Amazing! Thanks!!!!

Pressing the touchpad button worked first time.

Many thanks!

jon

Thanks for the help. I tried various ways including all the ones in the “help” section on my macbook. Restarting the computer while holding down the eject button finally got mine to come out!

Thanks so much!! I just saved my self a hundred dollars!! You are a God send!! I used one of my kids flash cards and tried what you said to do and it worked!

GREAT SUCCESS!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!

Whew!!! This totally worked. Thank you so much

Thanks! I tried the cardboard in the slot and was THRILLED that my problem was solved.

WOW! Thank you, holding the track pad worked for me! I tried everything and finally that worked! I was so close to throwing it out the window and having an even bigger problem! thanks again!!! :)

What if the DVD is one really small? It just happened to me and it got stuck and nothing work to release it. Please help!

It seems like many found this usefull. So my comment might not be necessary, but a “thank you” is never unwelcome.

Thank you!

Hey, I took it to the apple store and the guy got it out in literally 60 seconds. What happens is over time, the aluminum shell of the cd/dvd drive (plastic macbook 2008) gets bowed down and what happens is it traps the cd from getting out. What the guy did is he took two business cards (made of cardboard, not plastic) and put one on the upper brim of the cd slot and one on the lower. He then just took a mechanical pencil ( i’m sure almost anything with a cone tip works here) and inserted it between the two cards and sort of pried it open if you can visualize what i’m saying. He did it about twice (gently) and bam, cd was out.

I tried for over 2 hours to eject a disc and after reading this I restarted computer and held down touch pad. Thank you so much, prob saved me hundreds in unneeded repairs!

Thanks you so much. I was about to cry, its my dads laptop, if I had broken it man I would have been busted. So thanks

just try to burn something and the disk will be spat out …..

This worked.. holding down the touchpad button while restarting ejected the damn thing. Thank YOU!!!!!!!

thank you!!
i held down my mouse and it ejected right before the log in menu popped up

I stupidly inserted a mini-CD (3″ diameter) into my Macbook drive without thinking. It pushed in but the machine never noticed it was there so it wouldn’t eject. A friend told me to try using the removed metal shutter from a 3 1/2″ floppy disc. I inserted it into the slot and squeezed the upper and lower surfaces together by hand when it was most of the way in, grabbing the mini disc from above and below and pinching it between the two surfaces. After about three quick tries I pulled the CD right out.

Thank you soo much!! I tried to do the duo thing of both mac and windows, and while doing windows it got stuck and i could not stop it from constantly trying to setup windows….this was the only thing that worked…thank you x 1 billion

Tanks a lot! the mousepad worked!

oh my god
I GOT IT OUUUTTT!!!!
Thank you I used costa caffee reward card :)
You have to stick it pretty deep though.
It worked Thank you !!!!!
Saved my day

thx the 45 degrea one work for me

Saved the day. Thanks so much.

45 degrees – genius!

Thanks for all the tips for future referance. I got mine out by pressing the F12 key while booting. (this was before I read your tips)

Thankyou so much! Holding down the touch pad actually worked….who would’ve thought!

Holding down the mousepad worked!!! Thank you!!

U r The MAN! Thanks so much!!!!!

THANK YOU!!!! Holding the mouse click down worked brilliantly! So grateful!

Thanks a lot ! The tilting method worked perfectly for me. =)