Disc won't eject! Tried everything!!
 

Tried all the suggestions in the Mac Help. Including the firmware reboot thing and typing in "eject disc." Tried holding mouse button and restarting. Tried switching users. Tried dik utility and it just keeps spinning looking for a disc and cant find one.

Any ideas? Why is this happening? I thought these computers were supposed to just "work."

It's an iMac G5 1.8

How many discs are in the drive?

Is there something stuck to the top of the disc, like a sticker-label that might not be completely stuck down?

In any event, you've got some kind of hardware problem. Hardware problems happen with any hardware.

Trevor

Does the mechanism make a noise like it's trying to eject the disc?

Can you see the disc start to eject and then get sucked in again?

Have you tried the hi-tech paperclip?
 

I THINK there should be a small, barely visible, hole into which un un-bent paperclip can be inserted to manually eject the tray. It should allow you to retrieve the stuck disk, and that may be sufficient to allow the tray loading mechanism to work.

Joe VanZandt

it does sound like a hardware problem, but you may also try from the command line.

..in case it thinks it's empty, or

reboot and hold down the mouse button (left button if you have a two button mouse) and it should automatically eject the drive. This is built into firmware so it will happen before the OS even loads.

what are the results?

You didn't put in a mini disk by any chance did you ?

I tried everything you guys suggested with no success.

What's the command line, though? And no, there's nothing obstructing the thing, it makes no noise, it's a normal sized CD, there's just one CD, and... I think that's everything.

Thanks, guys. Tis REALLY sucks because I can't afford the ridiculous amount they'll charge to fix this, so I have to just not have a CD/DVD drive anymore.

Would opening the computer let me take it out?

And no, there's no peper clip hole which there should be.

The "command line" refers to typing commands in a Terminal window. See this Unix FAQ.

For iMac G5 you must take the optical drive out, and then you can't manually eject it anyways because slot loaders need power to eject. You will have to crack open the actual dvdrw drive.

So basically I'm screwed unless I pay someone to do this or I try myself... which I have clue what i'm doing. What a piece of crap. I expect this from my Aiwa CD player- not my $2000 computer.

You don't seem to have tried the commands suggested by MathewA above.
And you should retry the other solutions (mouse at startup, Open Firmware, etc)

Was there anything unusual about this disk? What type of CD is it?
Was there anything unusual about the Mac's behaviour when you put this disk in? Or before that?

I did try all the suggestions above. But I didn't know how to do MatthewA's advice.

Anyway, I restarted a 5th time and now it's working.

The CD was a normal instal CD for a Mac CD label maker Template thing.

Thanks, GUYS!!!!!

Just to be clear...to do the MatthewA advice just open up terminal.app and type the command as listed (or copy and paste)

But before doing that, be sure to read at least the first section of the document referred to in post #10 above.

Good to hear the darn thing finally came out.

You are aware of the suble irony of having this CD get stuck to warn you that putting paper labels on CDs and even more so on DVDs is a Bad Idea because those risk to get stuck - again ?

Instead use directly inkjet-printable media.

True, but this only really applies to slot loading optical drives, any tray loading drive can take the printed on labels. You may look into getting a light scribe drive or something like that so you won't have to use a label.

Not quite, at least for DVDs.
Paper labels get warped enough by varying humidity in the paper to cause focus problems beyond the depth of field of the pickup optics.
Conclusion of a test conducted by the german computer publication c't a while ago.

Yeah I use a sharpie to label my CDs and DVDs, but in the past have printed out a few custom labels and they still work, and they are like 4 or 5 years old.

I concur though, buying the print ready media would be the best choice, because I have seen what you are describing.

Just FYI for anyone searching for help with stuck CD issues. I had a problem with CD's not ejecting and finally discovered that ClamX AV was to blame. Every time I had a CD that wouldn't eject I shut down ClamX AV and the CD would eject. I've stopped using ClamX AV now.

niteflytes

Randomly worked today and now its fine. Cool!! (?)

Well ... I had the same issue today on my G5 iMac 17". In the past, a CD might occasionally not eject for one or two tries, but eventually would.

After trying everything I could find in the literature, I became more inventive. [N.B. I was expecting to destroy the drive in the process - that seems to be my lot.]

I took a small flat bladed screwdriver - the gifts they pass out at shows - and gently, placing the blade just inside the felt dust protector, ran it up and down.

I seemed to hit a plastic or rubber flapped slot immediately behind the felt one. At points it seemed as though I had unstuck the flaps on each side from one another - it was as if they had simply adhered to each other in some places as those materials tend to do.

VOILA!

Very pleased, as you might imagine.

Cheers...Gary

iMac Slot Loader not unloading
 

My kids' iMac's slot loading DVD drive was very slow to eject disks, and sometimes couldn't with out invasive yanking. The drive was trying to eject the disk, but it had a hard time doing it.

The problem was caused by the kids snotty and greasy finger, and whatever slime kids emit, coating both sides of every stupid Putt Putt CD they put in the iMac. Eventually, the rollers inside the DVD drive became so soggy and slippery, they couldn't gain traction on the disks.

The solution was to buy a bar of soap for the kids, and to take apart the iMac. I took apart the DVD drive and cleaned all the rollers with alcohol pads, cleaned out gunk, tiny doll house toys, lint, etc. and put it all back together. I did have about 5 extra screws when I was done, but it all works now.

MacBook Pro won't eject, won't read, won't work.
 

I bought a MacBook Pro from the online Apple Store's refurbished center. The MBP arrived a few days later and looked good except for a ripple on the bottom shell near the lid latch. Everything seemed fine until I tested the DVD drive. I put a DVD in, and nothing happened. Disk Utility, System Profiler, etc. could not located the DVD drive, let alone the disk. I called Apple Support, and worked my way up a few levels until enough people agreed that my DVD drive did not work. Nothing could be done to get the disk out, without opening something up and voiding the warranty. (Nice Refurb!). They emailed me a return label, and I sent the pig back for a replacement. 4 days later I had the replacement refurbished MBP came and its DVD drive works fine. It too has a ripple in the aluminum skin just below the lid latch, but it is not nearly as noticeable as the original reject refurb. Eh, it's just a tool.

I can't believe I will be loading Windows on it. Shoot me!

Performa 5300 won't accept disks
 

From the days of floppy disks"

My sister's Performa 5300 (or whatever it was) stopped accepting floppy disks. She or her slob kids would but some floppy disk in, and it wouldn't insert all the way, --- UNLESS they REALLY PUSHED HARD.

Once in, the floppy wouldn't come out. I went over there and got the disk out with some forceps. While there, I used a flashlight and saw some junk in the back of the floppy drive slot. I fashioned a long scraper hook out of a large paper clip, and used it with the forceps to extract:

A corner of an envelope with a half-peeled off stamp.
A small paper clip.
A used staple.
A magnet from a kids toy letter (belongs on the refrigerator!)

I pointed out to the little Cro-Magnons that the floppy disks and magnets don't get along. I also pointed out that they shouldn't stick paper clips, staples, slips of paper in the floppy drive slot. Once all that junk was out, the floppy drive worked fine.

a trick that worked
 

Hi,
I just had the same problem that others mentioned (CD with label absolutely refused to eject, even though the label appears very thin and absolutely flat on the disk), and found a solution that worked (once, for me -- your mileage may vary!), so I thought I'd report it. I simply turned my MacBook Pro vertical so that the CD slot was facing directly down, in the hope that "gravitational assist" might help the disk get out... Holding the laptop in this position with one hand, I clicked the eject icon and the CD dropped straight out. Worked like a charm on the first try!

Good luck to all of you... may your disk get unstuck and may all of your Mac-moments be happy.

Chris Lee
http://www.bioinformatics.ucla.edu/leelab

Ejecting stuck disc from slot drive.
 

I recently had the same issue with a stuck DVDR in my 24 inch Imac, It would reconise the disc if I let it boot up untouched but as soon as a tried to eject the drive would dissapear entirely.

After trying literally everything, Apple care Australia put me through to europe to try and solve it, from zapping Pram to open firm ware everything.

I wasn't too keen on sticking anything in the actual slot because I figured if the drive wasn't already screwed I would surely screw it doing so.

I let the computer boot up without holding the mouse button or hitting the eject button, it reconised the disc so I reeboted without pressing anything and just to get it spinning opened a few of the files from the disc which I had already written, if your disc is blank dont worry.

I then opened the disc utility and varified both of the volumes listed for the optical drive, unlike previous attempts they both varified perfectly so I did them both again just to be certain and used the eject function within disk utility.

initially nothing happened and I was just about ready make a 24 inch dartboard out of my mac but the disc ejected, A friend of mine had the same problem with his Macbook however his has been this way for over a week after a few trys his disc also ejected. If both volumes dont eject just reboot and play around to get the disc moving (toast worked for him) untill it does verify and bam you should be sweet.

Now if only my mighty mouse's trackball would work properly (compressed air fixed the horizontal tracking)

Best of luck all!

Joshua

Disc problem!
 

I forgot to mention the problem was caused by a shithouse quality disc!

Joshua

Well, I a 27" imac with cd stuck in it and this did not help.
THEN I REMEMBERED
I have ParallelsDesktop installed
So opened windows , went to My Computer and ejected the disc
Buying an electronic download of Parallels could be cheaper than calling in a repair man

Hiya read ya post with interest in hints-n-forums .I have a similar disk drive problem summat stuck in the drive but I can't get it out .Did you have any solutions?
Bob