CDs and DVDs can become stuck in your Mac's optical drive for many reasons, most of which seem to have to do with the phases of the moon. When this happens to you, don't spend all evening howling about the problem; instead try a nifty trick that usually will eject stuck media.
Use the Boot Manager to Eject Stuck CDs or DVDs
If you have a slot-loading Mac, including portables, Mac minis, and iMacs, you may find yourself unable to eject a stuck CD or DVD because your Mac has already unmounted the media. Once the media is unmounted, your Mac may not respond to the eject command because it believes there is nothing in the drive, and therefore, nothing to eject.
There are various ways to force a media eject. This one, using the Boot Manager, is pretty simple and almost always works.
- Shut down your Mac.
- Power on your Mac while holding down the option key.
- When the Boot Manager appears, it will display all bootable drives.
- Press and hold the eject key. The stuck CD or DVD should come flying out of the optical drive.
- Once the CD or DVD is ejected, you can use your mouse to click on the drive you want to boot from, and then finish booting.
This trick works because your Mac doesn't check to see if there is any media in the optical drive at the Boot Manager screen; it just performs the eject command.
