Ways to Eject a Stuck DVD or CD from Apple Computer

Do you have an optical drive in your Apple computer? Have you ever had a disc get stuck? What do you do when you cannot eject the disc? This article offers several tips you can use to troubleshoot a stuck disc drive.
A Variety of Options
A stuck disc drive is either the fault of software or hardware. By following the guide below, you can troubleshoot the cause of the glitch and narrow down if it is a hardware problem. The tips in the first part are keyboard tips. The second part involve rebooting your computer. Finally, we offer some manual fixes.
Part One: First Call of Action
Using keyboard and trackpad one of these should work quite successfully.
Tip 1: Locate the eject key which is on the upper right side of the keyboard and press it.
Tip 2: Open Finder on your desktop. Select Devices. Click on the disc and select Eject in the menu.
Tip 3: From your desktop, click on the disc icon and find Eject on the menu.
Tip 4: From your desktop, select the disc and drag it to Trash.”
Tip 5: Press the F12 key.
Tip 6: Finally, you may restart the System Management Controller. Shutdown your computer, then reboot by simultaneously holding power and Ctrl-Option-Shift down. Do not release the keys for 10 seconds. Release. Power up your computer again.
These tips are quite straightforward. However, if the disc is still stuck there are some other things you can try.
Part Two: More Options to Try
These tips involve rebooting your computer.
Tip 1: Turn off your computer. Plug your computer into an outlet. Press “Shift-Control-Option” on the left side of the keyboard simultaneously powering the computer on. Release. Turn off the computer again. Disconnect the power. Wait at least 15 seconds and then restart the computer.
Tip 2: Apple offers a utility to repair disks. Locate Disk Utility. Disk utility can be found inside the utilities folder within the Applications folder. Look at the sidebar and click on the disc with the problem. Try to Eject the disc.
Tip 3: If this is unsuccessful, locate the Terminal app. Go to Finder, click on Applications and then go to utilities. In utilities you will find Terminal.
In the Terminal app, type “drutil eject,” and click Enter.
Tip 4: Hold down the track pad and restart your computer.
Tip 5: The default when the computer is turned on is to eject the disk. So, you can simply turn your computer off for ten minutes and restart. The disk may automatically be ejected.
Tip 6: Hold down the button on your trackpad and restart your computer. Do not release the trackpad, until the computer completes booting. The loading of OS X will trigger the disc to eject.
At this point, the disc should have ejected with one of these ideas. The Terminal command, in particular, has a very high success rate. If the disc has not ejected, it is more likely a hardware problem and the following steps are a good idea to follow.
Part Three: If All Else Fails
Tip 1: See if your disc drive has a physical eject button. There might be a paperclip sized hole. Insert a paperclip and push gently.
Tip 2: Get some thin cardboard and insert into disc slot while spinning.
Tip 3: Take a second disc and insert into disc slot. Now try the eject methods suggested above.
Time to Get Professional Help
By following the tips provided above, the disc should be out of your computer. At this point, if your optical disc remains stuck in your computer then it is unquestionably a hardware not a software issue. Hopefully, you are still within the warranty period on your AppleCare. If so, you can take it to an Apple Store or authorized service center and have them fix it. Even without a warranty, you can still get it looked at and diagnosed. To actually get it fixed will cost you, but, at least, you will know what is wrong.