iMac won't eject disc! Force eject not working!

[MacPhilster]

Unplug the power before trying these options

NONE of the options worked for me until I closed down, unplugged the power cord, replugged the power, then rebooted.

Complete success after that!

A HUGE THANKS to everyone who is kind enough to post in the forums. You saved my day.

 

[funn1bunn1]

Thanks so much for this! It actually worked on the first try! I was having a freaking panic attack!

Omg u saved my life!!!!!!!! my mbp is brand new and i so regret that i picked the boot to cd in the startup disk utility, and it's a windows installation disk!!!!! it kept on booting from the cd and none method work, except what you suggest. I was about to cry too... Thank you very much. So immediately after I heard the startup sound, I press fn + eject key. Viola!!!!!

 

[RealityMonster]

NONE of the options worked for me until I closed down, unplugged the power cord, replugged the power, then rebooted.

Complete success after that!

A HUGE THANKS to everyone who is kind enough to post in the forums. You saved my day.

Oh man, this saved me too. Thanks, everyone.

 

[KA9Q]

Why does Apple think their customers are so stupid?

Why, oh why, does Apple still refuse to put in a manual disk eject lever? This has been a serious omission since the very first Mac in 1984. Do they think their users are too stupid to eject disks manually? How many thousands of hours of their workers time have they wasted helping users with this problem? How many thousands of hours have their USERS wasted with this problem?

 

[Vylen]

Why, oh why, does Apple still refuse to put in a manual disk eject lever? This has been a serious omission since the very first Mac in 1984. Do they think their users are too stupid to eject disks manually? How many thousands of hours of their workers time have they wasted helping users with this problem? How many thousands of hours have their USERS wasted with this problem?

but....

there aren't many slot-loading drives that have the manual eject you find on tray drives, i.e. the mechanical pin-hole. (i say "aren't many" cause I can't say for certain that they are none).

it's up to the drive manufacturer to design something like the pin-hole. it's not apple's fault.

 

[KA9Q]

Why, oh why, does Apple still refuse to put in a manual disk eject lever? This has been a serious omission since the very first Mac in 1984. Do they think their users are too stupid to eject disks manually? How many thousands of hours of their workers time have they wasted helping users with this problem? How many thousands of hours have their USERS wasted with this problem?

I've blown quite a bit of money on Apple in recent years, but I'm ready to tell Apple to go to hell and switch to Linux for my desktops and laptops, not just my servers. The cost is about half.

 

[KA9Q]

but....

there aren't many slot-loading drives that have the manual eject you find on tray drives, i.e. the mechanical pin-hole. (i say "aren't many" cause I can't say for certain that they are none).

it's up to the drive manufacturer to design something like the pin-hole. it's not apple's fault.

Nearly every PC-style CD and DVD drive has an eject button. True, it's an electrical button, not a mechanical one, and it's also true that the operating system can disable it. But at least it goes directly to the drive without being relayed through an operating system that can be wedged or completely non-operational. And that's when you are usually most interested in manually ejecting a disk. (Even when the OS has locked the drive, you can unlock it by power-cycling the machine and then the eject button will work even without an OS running.)

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that computer hardware is a commodity, and there's little reason to pay above commodity prices. Then you don't feel so bad when it breaks and you simply toss it out and replace it.

 

[hakr]

I've simply decided not to use the built-in DVD drive on my I7 iMac. I use an external firewire reader/writer that is one hell of a lot faster than the iMac's DVD drive, and...has a button on the front panel that always works if auto eject does not, and it has a pinhole for the paper clip method if all else fails.

 

[Ludaru]

I've just run into a problem where I put a disc in, it made a crazy noise, then got stuck. :\

The disc wouldn't eject, and then after I tried to eject it, it decided not to mount either. I tried the reset SMC trick, and it mounted when I turned the computer back on and I was then able to eject. So I put in another disc, as a test, and it's now stuck too/won't mount. I don't really want to reset the SMC everytime this happens, any other ideas?

This is when its booted and all? In that case, open terminal, write: "drutil tray eject".

 

[autmleaf2]

CD stuck in iMac drive

I tried putting a blank CD (just about a third of the way in) in while putting a paperclip in the force eject. It came out in about 30 seconds. Not sure the paperclip had anything to do with the success. Whew! It was a friend's CD woo, but it was not damaged.

 

[Fuchal]

Macs since the PowerPC days have an emergency eject feature that is enabled by rebooting the computer while holding down the mouse button. The CD will be ejected automatically.

 

[iBookG41.03GHz]

My brothers friend's iMac won't eject the disc. It locked up the computer and now it won't boot. They have tried holding down the mouse on start up but with no luck. Any thoughts?

Restart the computer while holding down -Option-O-F, to enter the Open Firmware prompt. Type "Eject CD" without the quotes, and press return. The disk ought to eject. To Start into OS X, type "mac-boot" without the quotes. Press return, and the computer should start up.

Note: this will not work with intel for some STRANGLY KOOKY reason

 

[wimpennyJ]

On releasing stuck discs on G5 iMac

Hi everyone!,

I spent a couple of hours trying to release a stuck disc on my iMac. In the end I contacted my friendly Apple Support bloke in Ireland (?).

A complete no-brainer of a solution not mentioned in these forums (fora?)

Switch off the computer, start it up and press function key 12 as the machine dongs. Disc released straight away!

Happy times!!
JW

 

[mlblacy]

hold the mouse down on restart...

Not sure if this is solved, but often if the other solutions don't work, this one does...

Select restart, hold mouse button down, keep down until sequence starts, and disk ejects...

cheers

 

[Agervold]

I was starting to panic because I could not get a stupid CD out of my brand-new iMac drive for the life of me!!! I had tried every option on Apple support and other tricks people had posted on forums, and was just about to cry when I came across your posting... it actually WORKED! My mac would not restart, so I shut it down manually by holding the power button, then when it shut down, let it rest a few seconds before starting it up again. TIP: As soon as you hear the start-up sound, hold down the function key (fn) along with the eject symbol key on the top right corner of the keyboard until... voila!!! It spits it right out! Hooray!!!

I tryed everything else, NOTHING worked, I was starting to panic and then I tryed this, and it worked, Thank You So Much!!!

 

[LeBonhomme]

From angry to relief

I was starting to panic because I could not get a stupid CD out of my brand-new iMac drive for the life of me!!! I had tried every option on Apple support and other tricks people had posted on forums, and was just about to cry when I came across your posting... it actually WORKED! My mac would not restart, so I shut it down manually by holding the power button, then when it shut down, let it rest a few seconds before starting it up again. TIP: As soon as you hear the start-up sound, hold down the function key (fn) along with the eject symbol key on the top right corner of the keyboard until... voila!!! It spits it right out! Hooray!!!

Thank you very much! It was so simple the way you did it. It worked on the first attempt and no risk of braking something. Thank's again!

 

[Tumbleweed666]

here is a tip that worked for me, in case someone else stumbles on this thread looking for options;

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!!!

Just to say that this also worked for me even though the disk icon wasnt even showing and so it didn't even seem to be trying to eject when I pressed "eject" key, so thanks.
(FYI I dont have a wireless keyboard, its wired, so I dont think the "wireless" part is important.)

 

[belbernard]

Tooth picker!

I tried all the soft solutions listed above - unsuccesfully - when rebooting an Intel iMac on which a DVD had been ignored and wasn't even visible in Disk Utility.

In fact the DVD was spinning from the start, the screen was light grey but no grey apple ever showed up. This is why the iMac wasn't even able to interpret the eject instruction. Still it did perform ctrl-option-P-R, but with no effect.

What finally worked was shaking gently the CD with a wooden tooth picker. I am afraid this might not be a good treatment for the drive. So I immediately placed an order for an external CD drive!

We should reserve internal drives to emergency operations such as burning a CD when there is no time for plugging the external drive.

 

[kevdav63]

itunes burn cd solution

I too have problems with my drive in my '07 aluminum intel iMac. Nothing recognizes that a DVD disc I insert is even there. A number of the above solutions didn't work for me (I didn't try them all). However the following does seem to always work for me and I've not seen it mentioned before:

Open iTunes
Right-click on a playlist and select the "Burn Playlist to Disc" option.
The disc ejects (since it is not a writable disc)

(Note I haven't tried this on a writable disc.)

Hope this works for the rest of you who are still having problems.

 

[johnclarkiii]

Try this for eject problems...

Okay... I tried all the above; no joy.

THEN (while doing the "hold eject button"), I disconnected a wireless USB transmitter (for my 2.1 speaker system) from the back of my iMAC 27...

**** BINGO! ****

HINT: use a heavy paperweight or something small/sturdy to continuously press the keyboard buttons; allows you to move about and think.

 

[geckonia]

None of the above helped me. The thing was just not coming out on it's own. Then I found this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2285?viewlocale=en_US

Except I used half a credit card that I had lying around instead of a paper clip to flick the release lever in the upper portion of the slot while the disc was trying to eject itself. Took a few tries to get it. I think that particular DVD (memorex) had rough edges, which Apple says may cause the problem. Every SONY DVD I've put in since ejects fine.

 

[iWebb]

won't eject cd

skeptical of sticking a paper clip, credit card or cd in the slot, i rebooted it. nothing happened. did a hard reboot while holding down eject. when it started back up, i held down function (fn) and eject = nothing. so i shut it down (hard shut down) and unplugged it. plugged it back in, started it, held down the "fn" key + eject and it came out right away. nice!!! thanks!

 

[Ubuntu]

skeptical of sticking a paper clip, credit card or cd in the slot, i rebooted it. nothing happened. did a hard reboot while holding down eject. when it started back up, i held down function (fn) and eject = nothing. so i shut it down (hard shut down) and unplugged it. plugged it back in, started it, held down the "fn" key + eject and it came out right away. nice!!! thanks!

Ah nice, glad it all worked out for you!

 

[Dick Cheney]

disk stuck or hung won't boot can't eject

My brothers friend's iMac won't eject the disc. It locked up the computer and now it won't boot. They have tried holding down the mouse on start up but with no luck. Any thoughts?

Here is something that worked on my Intel IMAC. Having had not luck with the usual advise, I decided to take the Ram out, having read somewhere that I could unplug the drive causing the problem - but no such luck. However, after putting the RAM back in, I pressed power on, and miraculously a complete startup occurred, no disk hang, nothing! I ejected the disk as normal. I suspect, the power being removed for a sufficient period, or the RAM getting removed, helped me out somehow. It may just help you too. Good luck!

Here's how:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1423

N.

 

[i bit an apple]

the restart when holding down the eject key was perfect, even with the system cd