Eject a stuck disk from your Mac DVD super drive
A friend of mine that is new to Macs couldn’t figure out how to get a CD to eject, after some frustration he then complained that his MacBook doesn’t have the paperclip hole to forcibly eject a disc from the superdrive. After some discussion I realized he’s probably not alone in his confusion of how eject a stuck disk on a Mac, so here’s a few different ways to do it, ranging from easy to more advanced. If a disk is still stuck in the drive after these methods have been exhausted, you may have an actual hardware problem.
Eject a stuck disk from your Mac
Easy Mac disk eject methods
1) Press and hold the Eject key on your keyboard, it looks like the above icon in this post
2) Right-click (control-click) on the disks icon on the Desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu
3) Drag the disks icon to the Trash bin within the Dock
4) Select the disk icon and hit “Command-E”
More advanced Mac stuck disk eject methods
1) Launch Disk Utility and select the CD/DVD from the sidebar. Click the Eject icon at the top of the Disk Utility screen, it should pop right out.
2) Launch the Terminal and type following command: drutil eject
3) If all else fails, try Restarting your Mac and hold down the mouse button (or trackpad button if you have a laptop) as the system boots. Hold it down until the system boots, again the disk should come out.
In the rare event that I have a stuck disk in my Mac I opt for the Terminal command mentioned above, it hasn’t failed me yet.
If the disk isn’t willingly to eject you could also try to restart the finder or try [sudo umount -f /Volumes/DISKLABEL] and try ejecting it again, works sometimes too.
My CD popped out after rebooting and pressing the mousepadbutton as you described but while holding the mousepadbutton I lifted the MacBook in an 45° angle.
DAS HALF SCHLUSSENDLICH!
I had a DVD stuck in an iMac and I got it out by holding the mouse button on reboot. Worked great. How did I not know this already?
if the disk is not being seen or the you are getting the beach ball and the disc is not being seen then pull the plug for power off
turn on the power and hold the eject button down until the disc pops out. the imac never gets to mount it and ejects it right away. this works if the disc info is corrupted or making the operating system stall.
From Apple:
UNEVEN EDGE OF THE CD OR DVD
There are two levers on a slot-loading CD/DVD drive that help center a CD/DVD disc. Some CDs and DVDs have an uneven edge which can cause enough friction to prevent the disc from ejecting.
If this happens follow these steps:
1. Take a large paperclip and grasp it with one hand so that about three quarters of an inch, or 18 millimeters, extends beyond your fingers. Insert the paperclip into the CD/DVD slot about 1.5 inches, or 36 millimeters, from the left edge of the slot. See below.
CD/DVD Slot
2. With the other hand, drag the disc icon on the desktop to the Trash to force the computer to eject the disc. When you hear the disc attempt to eject, slide the paperclip to the left edge of the slot and then remove the paperclip. You should feel a little resistance from the spring loaded centering lever. See below.
Paperclip Inserted into the Slot
3. Once the disc has been successfully ejected, wipe the outside edge of the CD/DVD with your hands. Cleaning the edge of the disc in this way will reduce the likelihood of the disc becoming stuck again.
forgot the link
Darn,
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2285
[...] from Eject a Stuck Disk from your Mac SuperDrive [...]
I have a DVD currently stuck in my Macbook! I have tried every currently published method to remove it. The disk will play and I have no trouble booting the machine. All of the published methods (pushing Eject/ Mouse button/ Cmd E etc) are just a means to accessing the software eject! even Drutil Eject in Terminal is the same thing! none of them get my disk out I need a physical way to do it without trashing my drive! please help!
Dudley,
This is a problem that I experienced last year when I was given a couple of sub standard DVD’s (probably pirate). I found by shutting down and leaving my MacPro to cool off for 15-20 minutes and restarting did the trick. The issue is with a sub standard disk it can be slightly thinner than the norm. This results in warping. Thus preventing ejection. Hope this helps.
[...] you need to, find out what to do if you have an exceptionally stubborn stuck disk in a Mac DVD drive. If it’s stuck in a portable Mac, learn how to eject a stuck DVD from a MacBook & [...]
I had this problem and nothing worked. So I tried the reboot. System stopped me sayig windows was running in Parallels. I stopped windows and suddenly the disk became available and I ejected it. I had noticed windows media player launched while the disk was inserted and so guess that somehow windows hijacked it.
I had a similar problem which none of the above fixes worked on. I had a bent drive frame. The front of frame was bent down just enough to prevent the disc from coming out. This required the removal of the drive, bent it back, reinstalled and its worked great ever since.
2-week-old Mac Pro, 10.6.6 None of the above fixes works in my case, as the computer will not boot with this disk (a Leopard install disk I was using to create a bootable zip drive) in the drive. Without the OS loaded, keyboard commands and so on are not accessible.
There is nothing bent or damaged; it’s just that the drive spins constantly and without stopping the spin it cannot eject. I’m trying the standby stop-the-DVD-with-a-bit-of-cardboard trick, but it appears that the new Pros have slightly less clearance above the disk surface then my 1st-generation Pro, and I can’t get the angle I need. For this I paid four thousand dollars? Sheesh.
thanks Tim Grivas…your suggestion was the only one that worked for me.
None of the above tricks worked on mu iMac with OS Lion. Finally a power off / on brought back the disk icon on the desktop so that I could reject normally the disk.
Apparently a power off/on is different than a reboot in Mac OS Lion.
hi
i can not eject of the cd macbook air 13″
and i have not a key
Lucky for you, the MacBook Air 13″ doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive, so you don’t need to eject anything! But the key is F12
This did the trick to me:
1bis) close all finder windows.
THANKS!!! the terminal “drutil eject” worked when all else failed on a scratched DVD from the library!
Option number 3 just worked for me, thanks!
Had a DVD stuck in my MacBook drive and tried everything. Nothing worked. Was on the point of giving up and going to the Apple store when I decided to try once more and reboot but this time I had the brainwave of holding the thing UPSIDE down. Bingo! Having wasted about an hour trying everything else I was relieved to eventually succeed. Hope this helps where everything else may fail.
Sweet!! “drutil eject” totally worked!!! *thanks*!!!