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DVD stuck in drive
#47818 02/05/18 05:38 PM
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deniro Offline OP
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After burning a blank DVD, I was unable to eject it from my iMac drive. Any ideas?

I've tried Apple's suggestion with the paper clip. I've watched videos on YouTube. Still stuck.

I've always had problems with this drive, so it's probably my fault for continuing to use it. I don't mind getting a new drive, but I don't want to open this computer. From the videos it is a daunting task. I hope to get the disc out without having to do that. I won't use the drive again, so I'm not concerned about doing any damage while trying to remove the disk. Thank you for your help.

Re: DVD stuck in drive
deniro #47820 02/05/18 05:42 PM
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In the olden days, you could eject a disk by doing a Restart and holding down the (left) mouse button during the restart process. Worth a try.


On a Mac since 1984.
Currently: 24" M1 iMac, M2 Pro Mac mini with 27" BenQ monitor, M2 Macbook Air, MacOS 14.x; iPhones, iPods (yes, still) and iPads.
Re: DVD stuck in drive
Ira L #47824 02/05/18 06:56 PM
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That doesn't work.

I miss the old days. I remember having an iMac, blueberry I think, that had a hole on the right side of the optical drive slot. You could take a paper clip, unfold it, and stick the tip in the hole to click a button that ejected the disc. Great feature. So of course it had to go.

What a pleasant computer that was. Maybe I should have kept it.

Last edited by deniro; 02/05/18 06:56 PM.
Re: DVD stuck in drive
deniro #47827 02/05/18 07:43 PM
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Its not easy with an iMac, but another trick has been to hold the computer with the optical drive opening facing down while you are ejecting. If you need an optical drive consider an external enclosure. It would likely cost less than the labor to open up your iMac to get to the internal drive.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: DVD stuck in drive
joemikeb #47830 02/05/18 09:58 PM
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Yes, I tried laying it down flat. Didn't work.

Re: DVD stuck in drive
deniro #47832 02/05/18 10:24 PM
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OK, I got it. Laying it on its back might have helped.

There was nothing methodical about what I did. I used my Swiss Army knife and kept jamming it in the slot while hitting my Mattias keyboard's eject key. Really handy that I can eject from the keyboard. I tried to follow what this guy did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfh8wlhN5s&index=1&list=FLHCmQ_HfZAxNE6JRSV6rIjw

Re: DVD stuck in drive
deniro #47849 02/06/18 05:36 PM
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Speaking of "ejecting from the keyboard", if you buy an external CD/DVD drive, be aware that (almost?) all EXCEPT for the Apple brand drive will NOT eject by using the keyboard. You will need to drag the Desktop icon for the dvd into the trash to eject it. Only (?) the Apple brand drive ejects the discs with the keyboard eject key.

My question marks indicate that obviously I have not tested every brand of disc drive.


On a Mac since 1984.
Currently: 24" M1 iMac, M2 Pro Mac mini with 27" BenQ monitor, M2 Macbook Air, MacOS 14.x; iPhones, iPods (yes, still) and iPads.
Re: DVD stuck in drive
Ira L #47850 02/06/18 05:40 PM
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My OWC slot loader ejects discs when I select them in Finder and hit command-E.

My 2016 MBP hasn't even got an "Eject" key.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: DVD stuck in drive
artie505 #47856 02/06/18 07:48 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
My OWC slot loader ejects discs when I select them in Finder and hit command-E.
My 2016 MBP hasn't even got an "Eject" key.

As long as the item to be ejected is selected (highlighted), keyboard ⌘-E will get the job done, as will the equivalent File menu item.
One could also assign that function to one of the F-keys which isn't otherwise dedicated.
At least on my iMac's extended keyboard there is a CD/DVD eject key which has the logo ⏏ imprinted on it (to the right of the F12 key).

Re: DVD stuck in drive
grelber #47858 02/06/18 08:37 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
At least on my iMac's extended keyboard there is a CD/DVD eject key which has the logo ⏏ imprinted on it (to the right of the F12 key).

Laptop keyboards (all of them?) have now got their power button to the right of F12 where their Eject key used to be...been a while now.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: DVD stuck in drive
artie505 #47869 02/07/18 04:37 PM
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My comments above were in reference to the dedicated ⏏ Eject key. With an Apple brand disc drive, no icon needs to be selected to use this key.

Then again, if that key does not exist for you… crazy


On a Mac since 1984.
Currently: 24" M1 iMac, M2 Pro Mac mini with 27" BenQ monitor, M2 Macbook Air, MacOS 14.x; iPhones, iPods (yes, still) and iPads.
Re: DVD stuck in drive
deniro #48081 03/01/18 02:03 PM
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So is it not attempting to eject at all? Watch the felt window carefully when you hit eject. Is it making a noise? Do you see the felt move at all?

Many times I've had customers bring in a liquid spilled laptop (and occasionally iMac...) that they had spilled pop and it got on the felt. It absorbs pop like a sponge. Then the pop dries out, leaving behind the sugar and syrup, and the felt is now very stiff and won't part easily when the (weak) eject motor tries to push out the disc.

Sometimes it just starts to peek out, gives up, and sucks it back in. If they just want their disc back I will boot into the boot selector, press the eject key on the keyboard, and as the disc reaches the outermost part of its travel (showing maybe 1-2mm of disc beyond the felt) and before it sucks it back in, I yank the power cord or turn off the power strip so the disc stays there. Then I get out an Xacto knife and dig into the lip of the disc and pull it out. The outermost ring on the disc is the last place to get written to so I'm not going to do any damage to the disc. But then again don't insert another disc! (tape up the slot)

Or you can takitapart and cut the felt off. Then it'll toss the disc out instead of just ejecting a bit for you to grab. Or you can pay for a new housing, and those (1) ain't cheap and (2) take a lot of time to replace. The felt is mounted on the outer shell of the laptop or bezel/rear housing of the iMac.

If you're quick you might even be able to snag it with a small needle nose pliers as it tries to peek out.

If it's not ejecting at all, no noise, the drive is defective. You will have to remove the drive and takitapart to get your disc back.

RARELY I ran into burned discs that were manufactured poorly with the hub ever so slightly too narrow and they tended to get stuck on the spindles. Sometimes a credit card could be used to coerce them out but often required takitapart.

In a way I'm glad to see ODDs are going away.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: DVD stuck in drive
Virtual1 #48229 03/14/18 07:00 PM
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Re: In a way I'm glad to see ODDs are going away.

--------------------------------------------------

I am hanging on to my MBPro 2011 for the very reason it HAS a working drive.

I still like to burn CDs and I use the ODD to watch DVDs - especially at times when the internet is not available for streaming video (i.e. on a bus with no or limited Wi-Fi).

P.S. Most commercial DVDs are "copy protected", so transferring the DVD contents to the computer is not really an option (legally).

Re: DVD stuck in drive
artie505 #48231 03/15/18 03:30 PM
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Re: My 2016 MBP hasn't even got an "Eject" key.

---------------


My guess is that when Apple got rid of the ODD, they tossed the eject button at the same time.

Eject "buttons" can easily be added to the Finder Task/Menu bar OR using a right click/contextual menu on the mouse.

Re: DVD stuck in drive
MG2009 #48233 03/15/18 07:55 PM
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Originally Posted By: MG2009
My guess is that when Apple got rid of the ODD, they tossed the eject button at the same time.
That together with shrinking the keyboard size to match that of the MacBook/MacBook Pro which leaves little room for extraneous keys.

Originally Posted By: MG2009
Eject "buttons" can easily be added to the Finder Task/Menu bar OR using a right click/contextual menu on the mouse.
There is no need to add them, simply attach an external ODD, insert a disc and voilà
  • an eject button will automagically appear on the menu bar,
  • a dismount/eject icon appears by the mounted disc in the Finder sidebar,
  • eject is on the context menu for the mounted disc (there is no icon or context menu for the drive itself, only the disc in the drive).
  • click on drag the mounted disc icon to the trash and that ejects it from the drive
  • I suppose it could be added to the Touch Bar on MacBook Pros that are so equipped, but the app developers have yet to do that.
This is consistent with how MacOS deals with any device, if it isn't present the drivers and any associated functions are simply not loaded. If you think about it, it isn't the physical ODD you want to eject, it is the disc in the drive. In fact the only way to eject the drive is to physically disconnect it. The disc is the only thing that can be ejected or dismounted. It is the ODD manufacturers who have removed the physical eject button from the drive, not Apple (albeit most likely at the request of Apple, HP, etc.). There are still some (a few?) external ODD enclosures that have a physical eject button but I haven't seen a paperclip hole for a while now.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: DVD stuck in drive
joemikeb #48240 03/17/18 11:28 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: MG2009
Eject "buttons" can easily be added to the Finder Task/Menu bar OR using a right click/contextual menu on the mouse.
There is no need to add them, simply attach an external ODD, insert a disc and voilà
  • an eject button will automagically appear on the menu bar,
  • ....

That's not the case with my 2015 MBP/macOS 10.12.6 and External Blu-ray Burner/Reader + SuperMultiDrive (*), but I can add a permanent Eject menulet to my menu bar by double-clicking on /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Eject.menu.

(*) I doubt that it makes a difference, but OWC no longer sells my drive, which differs from my linked drive by not burning Blu-ray discs.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: DVD stuck in drive
artie505 #48241 03/17/18 01:36 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
That's not the case with my 2015 MBP/macOS 10.12.6 and External Blu-ray Burner/Reader + SuperMultiDrive (*), but I can add a permanent Eject menulet to my menu bar by double-clicking on /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Eject.menu.

(*) I doubt that it makes a difference, but OWC no longer sells my drive, which differs from my linked drive by not burning Blu-ray discs

All I can say is it works on my MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) running MacOS 10.13.4 beta 5 with a Matshita BD-MLT UJ265 drive in a NewerTech Max Mini enclosure connected via either Firewire 800 or USB 3 through an OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock and on my wife's Mac mini running MacOS 10.13.3 with a bus powered USB 3 Apple Superdrive.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: DVD stuck in drive
joemikeb #48242 03/18/18 08:51 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: artie505
That's not the case with my 2015 MBP/macOS 10.12.6 and External Blu-ray Burner/Reader + SuperMultiDrive (*), but I can add a permanent Eject menulet to my menu bar by double-clicking on /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Eject.menu.

(*) I doubt that it makes a difference, but OWC no longer sells my drive, which differs from my linked drive by not burning Blu-ray discs

All I can say is it works on my MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) running MacOS 10.13.4 beta 5 with a Matshita BD-MLT UJ265 drive in a NewerTech Max Mini enclosure connected via either Firewire 800 or USB 3 through an OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock and on my wife's Mac mini running MacOS 10.13.3 with a bus powered USB 3 Apple Superdrive.

I just booted into macOS 10.13.3, and the eject button still did NOT appear in my menu bar.

I give up...it ain't hardly critical.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: DVD stuck in drive
artie505 #48252 03/19/18 10:18 AM
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Did you try it in a test account with no third-party goodies installed?



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: DVD stuck in drive
dkmarsh #48254 03/19/18 02:18 PM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Did you try it in a test account with no third-party goodies installed?

Good question, so I went the route, and tried in a pristine test Admin account, while logged in as root user, and while logged in to my main account while booted into safe mode, and the Eject icon never appeared in my menu bar.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: DVD stuck in drive
artie505 #48413 03/28/18 03:15 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
That's not the case with my 2015 MBP/macOS 10.12.6 and External Blu-ray Burner/Reader + SuperMultiDrive (*), but I can add a permanent Eject menulet to my menu bar by double-clicking on /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Eject.menu.


Usually there's a preference somewhere to add or remove those menu extras, though not always intuitively. The padlock to lock the screen for example is in Keychain Access. (as it also has options for locking/unlocking keychains in the menulet) I THOUGHT the eject menulet was selectable in disk utility's preferences, but Disk Utility currently doesn't have a preferences menu to select it from. Didn't it used to, long long ago?

And that Eject menulet will let you select which device to eject or open. I used it frequently when I needed to use Remote Desktop to access a headless mac pro and open its optical disk drive bay. (eject key on the keyboard was not effective over ARD) It's also useful when you would normally hit the key on the keyboard, but you have more than one optical drive attached, it will always eject the first one with the keyboard.



I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: DVD stuck in drive
Virtual1 #48417 03/28/18 03:39 PM
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I don't remember there ever being a Disk Utility pref pane.

Sierra has a CDs & DVDs pref pane, but it's "not available" until you connect a device to your Mac, and it does NOT include a menulet option; if there's one elsewhere, I've never run across it.

Last edited by artie505; 03/28/18 05:09 PM. Reason: I don't remember....

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

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