Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Get that "stuck" disc out of your Mac
Welcome to another Mac 101 here at TUAW. Mac 101 is our recurring feature where we point out some tips and tricks for folks new to the Mac. Remember, if you're a Mac expert this post isn't for you.Have you ever tried to unmount a disc in Mac OS X, but it simply wouldn't come out of your Mac's drive? Here are three ways of removing discs from your Mac's drive. If your Mac is currently using the disc you won't be able to eject it, so make sure that isn't the case first. If the disc isn't in use and you still can't eject it, give these a try.
Step 1: Drag the disc to the trash can
Find the disc on the desktop and drag its icon to the Mac OS X trash can. As you start dragging it towards the trash, the icon will change to an eject button, release the mouse button when the disc's icon is directly over the eject button.
Step 2: Try some command line goodness
If you have tried to eject the disc by dragging its icon over the trash bin, then why not try a simple Terminal command to eject the disc. Open Terminal.app (found in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app; or use Command + Shift + U to in any Finder window to move to the Utilities folder).
Once you have Terminal opened, type (or copy/paste) the following command: drutil eject
Step 3: Restart your Mac while holding mouse button down
If you've tried the other steps to no avail, then why not reboot your Mac while holding down the mouse button. Upon loading the Apple boot screen, your disc should be ejected.
Please note that if you have a disc that is actually physically stuck in the drive, this will not help. Stuck discs may need the assistance of an Apple Genius or certified Apple repair professional.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Alex Finn said 5:08PM on 6-23-2008
Or if you have a macbook pro, and the metal is most probably bent, use a coin of some type to open the drive while the disc is coming out using the above methods
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Sven Gebhardt said 5:19PM on 6-23-2008
wtf.
Blake said 5:26PM on 6-23-2008
Or tweezers. The thin kind.
tanguy said 5:24PM on 6-23-2008
Actually if its stuck-stuck, before going to apple, take a thin piece of cardboard like the back of a battery pack and maybe fold it in half and do the restart with the mouse button down, but stick the cardboard in there on top of the disk. (hold onto the cardboard, dont just shove it in there, but get it in there pretty good).
this happens to me all the time and this is the only solution.
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Ryan said 7:06PM on 6-23-2008
What he said. This is the only solution that works, and it works perfectly. Just stick a thin piece of cardboard in there on bootup, it'll fiddle around with the disc, and then give up and eject it. Works like a charm.
Quix said 5:27PM on 6-23-2008
I love my Macs, but dealing with disc ejection is the #1 most annoying thing about the platform for me (go figure). The amount of voodoo magic I have to do sometimes to get an unrecognized disc out of the drive is absurd.
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Neil Gall said 5:26PM on 6-23-2008
Or when your one-year-old sticks TWO dvds into the drive and all the above techniques just result in a horrible grinding noise, ask your five-year-old to accidentally knock the laptop onto the floor just as you're getting ready to visit the Genius Bar. The bump will dislodge the first dvd enough to pull it out by hand, allowing the mechanism to eject the other in the normal way!
True story, but I don't recommend it!
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Alex said 5:38PM on 6-23-2008
I've gotten stuck discs out of Macs before (primarily a laptop recommendation) by hold them drive facing downwards, shaking gently and pressing the eject button.
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mickey said 2:06AM on 7-31-2008
OMG, Thank you sooooooooooo much! O_O You saved me! I've tried every method, couldn't even reboot, stuck every cardboard in, wrote every command, held every trackpad, waited 15mins. My disk kept spinning and I was afraid my macbook will melt. But this one worked! *teary* And I only brought this macbook 2 weeks ago..
Mike said 5:47PM on 6-23-2008
And when everything else fails, try this method, because it works always - http://www.silvermac.com/2006/dvd-stuck-in-macbook-pro/
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gerdozain said 5:47PM on 6-23-2008
When all of these fail, go to the Disc Utilities Application and try ejecting it from there. Sometimes that works when everything else has failed.
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mugczar said 6:33PM on 6-23-2008
Here's one that might be a bit more advanced than level 101 ... I've been trying to get a disk out of an iBook G4 for more than a year now. The drive used to be hit-and-miss, but eventually it disappeared - no reference of it even in the System Profiler.
It's getting power, though, because every time the computer powers up or wakes from sleep, the drive will spin the disk for a bit, and then go back to hibernation.
Took it to the Genius Bar once, they couldn't figure it out, either.
Why would an optical drive just cease to 'exist'?
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motoxo said 8:10PM on 6-23-2008
mine wouldn't do any of these suggestions.
so the geniuses used masking tape to get mine out. turns out my dvd/cd player had a loose cable and they had to take it in and fix it.
sidenote: they had a bet in the back that i had porn on the dvd. alas, it was only a printer driver. :(
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(01) said 8:22PM on 6-23-2008
Do you mean hold down the Eject key while restarting? I've never heard of holding down the mouse key to eject a stubborn disc...
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paulsboutique said 8:48PM on 6-23-2008
Try using Toast and the Eject feature in the menu, its been my savior. This only works with DVD/CD's for Drives try Disk utilities
And yeah one of my biggest gripes with apple is this flaw in the hardware, steve its time to fix it... i do miss my pismo tray load dvd :( BRING BACK THE TRAY!!!! (at least you can use mr clippy to eject with a tray as last resort)
Also noticed my g4 with leopard crashes when inserting a dvd lately anyone else??
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Lauram said 9:58PM on 6-23-2008
I have an intermittent problem with my MBP (less than a year old) not being able to read certain DVDs. It sucks them in, churns over them for a while, then spits them back out. Only does it with some discs, specifically movie DVDs, but only some of those. I called my local repair shop and the guy told me that the rejected discs were "too thick" -- that is, the painted images on them added just that tiny extra bit of girth that made them unacceptable to my drive.
However, I've found that the drive will sometimes recognize the disks if after inserting one, I hold the base of the laptop at an angle -- tilted acutely up or back, it seems to vary. Once it "catches" and starts reading the disk, I can usually level the base out again and it will continue to play.
This problem was really a drag on long flights until I figured out how to finagle it.
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Harish said 10:04PM on 6-23-2008
Disk utility. Done.
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Russo said 10:09PM on 6-23-2008
Hey Cory,
One thing to remember with the slot loading disk drives is that memorex discs are thicker than other disks. Be wary of them. I've gotten a few stuck in my iBook and iMac before. I had to take my iBook to my local Apple Store to get it out. (Those are some great chaps at the Genius Bar)
Just be wary of the Memorex.
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somegenius said 2:10AM on 6-24-2008
ppc users can boot to open firmware (cmd + option + "o" + "f") and type "eject cd"
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ChillyWilly said 5:10PM on 6-24-2008
This is the option I've always used. True, that it only works on PPC (I've not tried it on Intel)