I have a defective DVD stuck in my eMac. I can’t get the drawer open. I tired opening it through iTunes. I tried opening it through the DVD player Eject. I tried eject through the Finder’s File menu. I tried dragging the DVD icon to the trash. Whatever I try, all I got is the swirling rainbow cursor of death. The keyboard button is not an option because the original keyboard broke and I’m using my old iMac keyboard. Short of getting myself a Philips head and manually removing the drawer, how do I get this goddamn thing out?
IANA Mac Tech, but most tray-type drives have a pinhole emergency eject button. there should be one near (possibly below) the tray. Get a paperclip, straighten it out a bit, and push it into the hole. You should feel a slight ‘give,’ followed by the tray opening.
Most CD/DVD drives for PC’s (don’t know about Macs but they’re probably the same) have a small pinhole in the front that you can insert a straightened paperclip to force a mechanical eject.
I don’t use Mac stuff, but I understand that if you press certain buttons when starting up Macs, you can get them to do certain things. (Including eject CDs, IIRC).
You may find this page helpful.
F12? wasn’t that the key you have to push on older mac keyboards without a labeled ‘eject’ key? One of the higher ‘F’ keys, at any rate. You do have to hold it down for a few seconds, in some cases (so it can overcome the standard function, whatever that is).
I should have mentioned that I tried the pinhole too and it didn’t work.
I tried it again though and this time it did. The offending disc is out of the computer, even if the computer continues to refuse to admit it.
Stupid Wild World of Batwoman…
Thanks everyone.
For the record, if you turn on a Mac while holding down the mouse button, it’ll eject all removable media first.