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Quick Tip: How to Force Eject a Stuck
Disc
Paula DuPont on Nov 7th 2012 with 6 Comments
Tutorial Details

Topics: Hardware, OS X
Difficulty: Beginner
Estimated Completion Time: 5 Minutes
If youve ever tried to eject a disc and nothing happened, its both frustrating and more than a little panic-
inducing. Will you get your disc out in one piece without having to crack open your Mac? In this quick
tip, well go over a bunch of ways to force eject that stuck disc safely, without causing any damage to
either the disc or your Mac.

Getting a Stuck Disc Unstuck
The Obvious Solution: Drag and Drop
First, try dragging the disc from the desktop to the trashcan in the Dock. Its likely this was one of the
first things you tried, but sometimes its worth stating the obvious. You can also try locating the disc in
the Finder sidebar and clicking the eject icon that appears next to it.

Dragging a disc from the desktop to the trashcan usually ejects it.
Use an App to Eject
Sometimes when Finder cant eject a disc on its own, an application used to handling discs can. If you
have Toast, thats a good one to try, but even iTunes or DVD Player help you out. Just open the
application of your choice and locate the eject command.
This is helpful especially when you know you have a disc stuck in your Macs drive, but its not visible in
Finder.

Using the Eject command in iTunes or another application may work when Finder fails.
Get Tough
If the disc is being a real pain and still refuses to clear out, its time to roll up the welcome mat and let it
know its time to go. Your first stop will be Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilites/Disk Utility.app.
Find your disc in the left sidebar and click the eject button up top, or right-click on the disc and select the
eject command.

You can also eject using OS Xs Disk Utility.
For the really stuck disc, there are some Terminal commands you can use to force eject it. Open
Terminal, similarly located at /Applications/Utilites/Terminal.app. The first two eject commands worked
the same for me, but if one doesnt work for you, try the other.
1
2
drutil eject
drutil tray eject
If you have an external drive, you should try a third command:
1 drutil eject external
When Nothing Else Works
Restart your Mac while holding down the mouse or trackpad button. You may think its not working, but
keep holding the button down until your computer has fully restarted. This has always been my last resort
and has never failed to work for me.
However, if it didnt work for you, restart while holding the Option key to open up the Startup Manager.
When you get your selection of bootable volumes, let go of the Option key and press the eject button.
This should pop the disc right out, too.
Last Ditch Effort
If the stuck disc still wont eject, fully shut down your computer. Turn it back on, but let it sit idle for ten
minutes or so. Hopefully the disc will pop out on its own. Maybe.
If the Disc is Physically Stuck
When none of the above has worked, you may have a disc thats physically stuck in your drive. No
amount of force eject tips is going to get that thing out of there. If you think your disc is jammed, its best
to stop trying to get it to eject or do anything else really, and consult an Apple Genius or other repair pro.
Tip: Older Macs have a little hole that you can stick a paperclip in to eject the disc. If youre trying to get
a disc out of a dusty iMac in the attic, this may work for you.


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TS2097: If you can't eject a CD or DVD or open the
drive tray
Learn about If you can't eject a CD or DVD or open the drive tray
TS2097 Cannot eject iMac CD
7707 Views 4 Replies Latest reply: 15/08/2012 04:24 PM by Kappy
Level 1 (0 points)
bob.ashrak
15/08/2012 03:51 PM
My IT folks provided a bootable CD to run an emulation on my iMac.
Didn't work properly (froze).
Could not eject CD.
Tried USB mouse holding down mouse button while restarting.
Did not eject CD.
Open to any options.
(Normal mouse & keyboard are wireless)
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), wireless keyboard and mouse
I have this question too (1)
Categories: DVDs and CDs
Level 10 (180,895 points)
Kappy Tampa, FL and Vancouver, BC
TS2097 Re: Cannot eject iMac CD
15/08/2012 03:53 PM (in response to bob.ashrak)
Five ways to eject a stuck CD or DVD from the optical drive

Ejecting the stuck disc can usually be done in one of the following ways:

1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the left mouse
button until the disc ejects.

2. Press the Eject button on your keyboard.

3. Click on the Eject button in the menubar.

4. Press COMMAND-E.

5. If none of the above work try this: Open the Terminal application in your Utilities
folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following:

/usr/bin/drutil eject

If this fails then try this:

Boot the computer into Single-user Mode. At the prompt enter the same
command as used above. To restart the computer enter "reboot" at the prompt
without quotes.
o Like (1)
Level 1 (0 points)
bob.ashrak
TS2097 Re: Cannot eject iMac CD
15/08/2012 04:02 PM (in response to Kappy)
Thanks,

Tried holding down left mouse button but it did not work
iMac Keyboard is wireless, so I am using standard USB keyboard
Is there an equivalent key or key combination to the eject key on Apple keyboard?
Cannot get to menubar
With non-Apple keyboard, which keys would equate to COMMAND-E?
Cannot get into OS-X, so cannot use Utilities
I will see if I can boot into Single-User Mode
o Like (0)
Level 1 (0 points)
bob.ashrak
TS2097 Re: Cannot eject iMac CD
15/08/2012 04:18 PM (in response to bob.ashrak)
Kept repeating the process of rebooting and holding down mouse button
Eventually (after several attempts), the CD ejected

Thanks for your support
o Like (0)
Level 10 (180,895 points)
Kappy Tampa, FL and Vancouver, BC
TS2097 Re: Cannot eject iMac CD
15/08/2012 04:24 PM (in response to bob.ashrak)
Glad I could help.