Ejecting DVD’s & CD’s From Your Mac 22

Trick

Ejecting DVD’s & CD’s From Your Mac

Hey

Although the title may seem simple, every so often a CD or DVD will get stuck inside your Mac, not matter how much you hit the eject button nothing will happen. It is stuck. Anyway this post will show you a couple of tricks that will hopefully help you eject a stuck disk. Most of the time waiting and coming back to eject the disk seems to work. But if that doesn’t work you can use some of the following tips.

1) Use Terminal. A quick trick is to use Terminal, don’t both with a fancy GUI lets get down to business. Type the following into Terminal and see if it spits out the disk.

drutil tray eject

2) Try from a different app. If you have iTunes, Disco or another program installed that shows disks up in the sidebar, use that program to try and eject the disk. A different app might just wake your drive up.

3) Use Disk Utility. Under Applications > Utilites > Disk Utility. Click on the drive that is not responding and hit eject. This, more often than not, will spit the disk out.

4) Restart. Simple enough do a quick restart.

5) Restart holding down the mouse. Although I have not tried this tip, some people have suggested holding down the mouse button while restarting. This should spit the disk right out.

6) Restart to pick a drive. If you have used boot camp you will be familiar with picking a drive to restart in. If you restart and hold option during the start of boot, eventually you should get the option to pick either your Hard Drive or your CD disk. At this stage try pressing the eject button your your keyboard. If it doesn’t open up into Mac OS as normal.

7) Shove something in the drive. If you have tried everything else and nothing happens you may have to resort to more drastic measures. With the computer off stick a piece of path in the drive trying to place it at the bottom of the disk. Try and either pull the disk out using friction or it will pop out. I have never tried this method but it can rescue your disk from what people have said.

8) Call Apple / Take it apart. If you are still in warrenty you could take your computer down to a Genius Bar or call up Apple, they should be able to take your drive apart and resuce your disk. If you are out of warrenty or don’t want to go to an Apple store you could always take apart the computer yourself. I am sure there is a tutorial on the internet for taking your computer and drive apart.

Hopefully you will not have to resort to methods 7 and 8. But if they do I wish you luck. You will probably break something in the process, but if the disk is stuck your drive is already broken so what is there to lose. If you have any more tips please leave a comment below.


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22 Responses to “Ejecting DVD’s & CD’s From Your Mac”

  1. 1

    Can a Mac take mini-disks I wonder? Because the internet sites are controversial some say the slot loading drives choke others say otherwise.

    Thanks,
    GG

    Comment By GG on January 3rd, at 11:14 pm

  2. 2

    I thought the very same thing myself. I was going to include a statement about it, but I didn’t include it in the end. I have read that it *can* take them, I think in the manual. But it seems risky and it probably wont work. Try it out, see what happens. I think it may choke. Its probably better using a slot loading drive and ripping the disk.

    Comment By admin on January 3rd, at 11:20 pm

  3. 3

    There is also a hidden eject menu deep in the system folder. Just double click Eject.menu to activate. Use Command key + drag out when you dont want it in the menu anymore.

    /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Eject.menu

    It looks like this
    http://www.creativetechs.com/tips/tip_images/EjectCD.jpg

    Comment By Anders on January 4th, at 3:38 pm

  4. 4

    I forgot about that little menu item. Thanks.

    Comment By admin on January 4th, at 3:54 pm

  5. 5

    A normal sized CD has gotten stuck in my white macbook before. It would tryto eject, but the CD would not spit out. Since the side of the macbook is the weaker side of the frame, I had bent the opening inside the slot. I had to hold open the slot with a flathead screwdriver in order for the disk to pop out. Since my computer was under warranty, apple replaced the superdrive for free.

    Comment By thomas on January 4th, at 5:49 pm

  6. 6

    Great tips, but I would really really really strongly suggest doing the the “take it to apple” (or at least phoning the helpline) option BEFORE you do anything like sticking something in the drive which could potentially damage it permanently! Especially if it’s under warranty but it’s worth a try even if it’s not under warranty – the Apple stores are frequently helpful with stuff like that I hear.

    Also, only put FULL SIZE and STANDARD SHAPE disks in a slot loading drive. Mini size disks or ones where the edges are cut oddly (eg square “disks”) are almost certain to get stuck and possibly damage your drive.

    Comment By Ricky Buchanan on January 5th, at 3:59 am

  7. 7

    I’ve always found that Disk Utility does the trick on my iMac, so haven’t needed to explore other methods. My old 1999 iMac had an alternative manual eject, a little pinhole into which one could poke the end of a paperclip – very handy, although I don’t remember ever having the need to use it.

    I’ve often wondered why a disc gets stuck, or why it won’t burn. I’ve only experienced a non responding and stuck disc when I’ve put in a blank one preparatory to burning. Could this be because I’ve put it in before being prompted to do so by the application and so is it not detected as being in there?

    Comment By John on January 5th, at 1:55 pm

  8. 8

    I”m not sure why they get stuck. The drives hardware is probably to blame.

    Comment By admin on January 5th, at 2:23 pm

  9. 9

    I have a handy free app called Force Eject. No GUI involved; just a button you can throw in the dock and forget about until you need it. Works well in my experience.

    Comment By Jiji on January 5th, at 2:37 pm

  10. 10

    I have tried everything that has been suggested and the disk won’t. come. out. It’s now beyond frustrating.

    Comment By Teri on January 16th, at 9:15 pm

  11. 11

    i had this problem tonight, tried everything on apple/support, no work!!!

    called support, the first thing he suggested worked, apparently a secret i haven’t seen anywhere else!!! i searched for two freakin’ hours, and 5 minutes on the phone worked!!!

    shut computer down, while holding the eject button on the wireless keyboard, turn computer on, eject as designed!!!

    i tried at least 5 other suggestions at least twice each to no avail before this.

    2008 intel based imac

    tried;

    dragging icon to trash can. NO GO
    ejecting from itunes. NO GO
    eject via disc util. NO GO (gave message “unable to unmount”, with no clue what to do!)
    reboot while holding Opt-Comm-O-F. NO GO
    eject in terminal. NO GO

    Comment By lee on February 9th, at 3:32 am

  12. 12

    Lee,thank you so much for this simple and working solution !
    I have been struggling with my cd-rw beeing stucked in my iMac 24″ (Intel based) and tried al the other suggestions with no suc6.
    But simply shutdown iMac and hold eject button on startup worked like a charm! Wish i knew about this 2,5 hours before ;-)

    Comment By abrbon on July 18th, at 9:21 pm

  13. 13

    my disc doesn’t show up on the screen/sidebar, and it’s stuck so nothing works even any of the tips on this list.

    Comment By luke smeenge on August 15th, at 6:46 am

  14. 14

    Thank you so much! My dad got the CD stuck in there trying to save something, but the Disk Utility trick popped the CD right out

    Comment By Shema on October 15th, at 3:09 am

  15. 15

    Thanks for the help!

    Comment By patrick on October 18th, at 5:50 pm

  16. 16

    This is my second iMAC in a row where, within a week of purchase, a disc got stuck in the drive. It’s really irritating contemplating spending an hour on the phone with Apple, then having to pack the computer up and send it back. I’m half tempted to just leave the disc in the drive, leave it mounted on the desktop, and use an external drive from now on. That’s what I did last time. Before I give up, though, I’m going in with two credit cards wrapped in double sided tape to see if I can’t pop the disc out. Wish me luck.

    Comment By yossarian on December 20th, at 11:14 am

  17. 17

    ok,thank for your article.

    Comment By mac dvd converter on December 25th, at 8:51 am

  18. 18

    a dvd got stuck in my drive after i accidentally dropped my computer while there was a disk in there…the computer wouldn’t recognize the disk, so i could not eject it. but then i tried restarting the computer and holding down the mouse button, and it worked like magic! thanks for the help.

    Comment By Sophie on January 4th, at 8:09 pm

  19. 19

    Hi, i have seen your site when searching a few weeks ago and i really love the design! I just bought a new domain for a niche review blog, and i was wondering if your design is a free or paid one? I

    Comment By Pink Cordless Screwdriver on January 17th, at 9:12 am

  20. 20

    Thanks. Looked around for hours and finally got the solution from you. The option-key worked fine.

    Thanks!!!

    Comment By herkots on January 26th, at 9:02 pm

  21. 21

    Next time,Try turning off your computer,then…(HOLDING DOWN THE EJECT KEY)Restart your computer.The disk should eject.
    Good day, I hope it works.

    Comment By william on January 29th, at 5:35 pm

  22. 22

    thank you! #1 worked a treat.

    Comment By hao on February 8th, at 3:47 am

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