CD stuck in iMac

If none of the below work, you will need to take it to a professional

Force eject a stuck cd/dvd

First try the normal methods to remove the disc. Drag its icon to the Trash can in the Dock or select 'Eject' from the File menu.

If you are running a virtual machine, e.g. VMFusion, ensure that the CD is disconnected from the virtual machine. This will sometimes allow the CD to now show up in Mac OS X.

Shut down the computer and start up whilst holding down the mouse button. This may take some time, but keep your finger on the mouse button right up until the disc comes out or the log-in screen has appeared.

If you have Toast Titanium installed on your computer, choose EJECT DISC from the menubar.

Sometimes you can successfully use the eject disc button in iTunes even if the disc is not visible to the Finder

Open Disc utility and choose the disc you wish to eject in the left-hand pane, then click on the Eject button.

Some Macintoshes have a paperclip hole that you can insert a straightened paperclip into, manually triggering the eject mechanism.

Open Terminal and type "drutil tray eject" to eject the disc/tray, and "drutil tray close" to close the tray.

If your computer has an eject button on the keyboard, restart the computer holding down the Option key. When the startup disk selection screen appears, let go of the option key and press the keyboard's eject button.

Source: http://guides.macrumors.com/Force_Eject_a_Stuck_CD_or_DVD

I agree that all Macs that have builtin optical drives should have a manual eject feature; however, for slot loading drives of the type Apple & most other companies use it won't do much good when the disc is hanging up because of a separated stick-on label, & it could do some harm.

That's because these low profile drives of necessity use a lot of thin, relatively delicate stamped metal parts that can't withstand much force without bending. And since there is very little empty space around the inserted disc, the edge of a sticky label that has come lose can be forced against some part of the mechanism, requiring more force to eject the disc than some of those parts can handle.

The solution (such as it is) is to avoid using discs with stick-on labels in slot loading drives as much as possible. This is particularly true for builtin slot loading drives in iMacs & similar models because the heat generated by the other parts of the computer can soften the adhesive used in stick-on labels, making it more likely that part of the label will come lose.

If you must use a lot of discs with stick-on labels, it is a good idea to invest in an external tray loading drive. They are much more tolerant of lose labels because there is more empty space around the inserted disc, they tend to use slightly more robust parts, & essentially all of them have a manual eject mechanism strong enough to pop open the tray when a disc is stuck in them.

Yes. In the US some of the Epson printers haver a print to disk feature. The US Canon printers are capable of printing to disc but those sold in the US don't have that feature enabled nor the added part. Those sold in Canada do have the print to CD enabled.

I've seen posts/web sites on how to get a US Canon printer to print to disk. You'll have to search the web for that.

3Don wrote:

Are there printers available that only print CD labels on the actual disk to avoid stik-on labels that get stuck in?

Scroll to the bottom of this Canon page to see a list of current Canon printers with "CD/DVD Printing" capabilities. Note that you need special but readily available discs marked as "Inkjet Printable" or similar to use this feature. The discs have a special paper-like coating that inkjet ink adheres to. Regular shiny plastic discs won't hold ink very well, if at all.

Thanks for the info. When I went looking a while ago (a year or so) Canon didn't offer the CD option here in the US.