How force eject disc

I also have a computer with no OS installed.

What worked for me was to 1) hold down the option key on start-up until the disk/boot icons appear. 2) Then press the eject key (or F12) on the keyboard. Pressing eject on its own did not work.

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.

This just happened to me. IT IS NOT YOUR SUPERDRIVE!!! I just copied data to 30 DVD's perfectly, and ran in to a bad disk that wouldn't eject. After spending 1/2 a day trying to figure it out I finally did!!! (command E, power down, turn superdrive upside down, almost used the screwdriver suggestion (LOL)) Hope this helps someone and will save you lot of time!!! On Macbook Air...Open up FINDER - on the top menu bar go to GO - Scroll down to UTILITIES - double click - DISK UTILITY - wait for Superdrive to respond - HIGHLIGHT on the left of the screen the CD - Click EJECT - Good luck! 😁

I just wanted to say "thank you" to jnmaloof. I'd tried every scrap of advice I could find online, as well as working with a customer service rep on the phone. Thanks to you, I've just cancelled my appointment at the Apple store for tomorrow. My 4-month-old son thanks you for sparing him a trip to Tyson's Corner that would almost certainly have tanked nap time. Much appreciated. The Option key worked a charm.

As a tech support specialist for more than 20 years, I find CD/DVD eject problems to be among the most annoying feature of Apple computers, where the manual eject button is masked over by the frame.

I tried all of the above, repeatedly, for more than 20 minutes.

A co-worker walked by and said "Sometimes the disk hits the rubber dust seal on the way out and won't eject."

He was right!

I ran my thumbnail along the seal to spread it outward and the disk ejected on the next try.

It's not always software, people!

In my case I was trying to eject a music CD that I burned before. On top of the CD I pasted a CD Label describing the CD and its music contents. As it turned, a very small portion of the edge of the label (~ 0.5 mm) detached from the CD and folded backwards. This prevented a clean CD ejection, no matter what I did. One thing I noted was that as the computer (iMac) tried to eject, about 5 to 10 mm of the CD would come out for a couple of seconds and the CD would return in. At the moment the CD would become visible, I quickly grabbed and pulled it out without any problems. From now on I think I will not use labels on my CDs or simply use high quality labels specifically recommended for iMac.

I tried all of the recommended solutions: right/left mouse click upon reboot, writing commands in the Terminal, pressing command button during reboot....nothing worked!!! I finally did stumble upon this link Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support and did as suggested by Apple: Shut down iMac, unplugged power cord, waited 15-20 seconds, plugged cord back in outlet, pressed power button after 5-15 seconds.....AND......voilà!!! Cd ejected on its own once the OS system rebooted.

Ya- Hoo ! Running my finger along the disc slot (iMac24) did the trick (after all others failed..) Many thanks!

Just had the same issue where the disc wasn't recognised and couldnt be ejected. Saw on another thread to be aware if you have Parallels or VMWare running the virtual OS could have operation of the disc - and in my case it did so I ejected it from Parallels.

I have had the same issue with my Macbook Pro for months now. Everything I tried did not work. And I tried all of the five steps above, repeatedly. I finally got it out today. It was a combination of the running your thumb along the seal (although I used a greeting card) and turning the computer on its side and shaking it up and down while the ejecting (or non-ejecting) is happening. I got the shaking idea from another thread about this. I did try just clearing the opening as suggested above, but it didn't work that way all by itself. So I added the shaking.

Thank you SO much jnmaloof!!!! Finally, finally, finally, finally.

I had to keep holding down the eject key (after the boot screen came up). It ended up ejecting a little at a time, sliding part way out and then on a bit, and then out further again. Finally it was far enough to pull it out. (At this point I didn't want something to go wrong and so took the risk to pull it.)

Had the same problem again, but right click didn't work. Put the tapered end of a wooden chopstick between the rubber on the sides of the eject slot and slid it down slowly. This separated the rubber enough and the disc ejected when I hit the eject button. I had the problem with a CD-R, but it does not occur with a store-bought music CD,

After building my iMac from scratch, the optical drive failed to release my OS disc. I could hear the disc attempting to be read, but, could not proceed from that point. So, I did the right click + thumb in the optical drive maneuver and it worked straight away.