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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Techie: How to remove a CD or DVD from an iMac


It's frightening when you've got a CD or DVD in your iMac AND the drive disappears from Finder AND the eject button on the keyboard does not work.

It happened to me when I ejected a CD and then reinserted it too quickly - which is something I won't be doing again in a hurry - which is another way of saying I'll make sure I've got the brain engaged first next time.

However for when I'm being totally clueless before my second cup of tea in the morning this is my reminder to myself which I thought I would share with others!

This is how you get a stuck CD / DVD out!
  • Make sure the CD or DVD disc is not in use. Quit all applications that are using files on the disc.
  • Go to Applications
  • Go to Utilities
  • Go to Terminal
  • do not clear what is there
  • type in "drutil eject" (leaving out the quote marks) and press return
  • your iMac will whirr and the disc will eject!
You can now breathe again!

I'm assuming the process will probably also work with the SD card slot although that's less of a problem as part of the card is always visible.

Other guides to "what to do" include:
I absolutely cannot vouch for any of these methods but thought it might be helpful to make a record of them here - just in case!

Journal of an iMac Virgin

It's been suggested to me that I need to update my Journal of an iMac Virgin for those of you would like to know how I'm getting on with my new 27" iMac after a bit more than two months of use.

I'm going to be doing another post next week but in the meantime, for those who are interested but have not read them, here's my earlier posts:
In the meantime I'm now going to watch another episode of the BBC Modern Masters Series on my 27" HD screen - about Matisse. 
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10 comments:

  1. Julie DouglasSaturday, May 22, 2010

    Ooh, THANKS for that, un-ejecting cd's is v stressful, especially if it was only leant to you in the first place!!

    Julie Douglas, Ireland

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sue SeibertSaturday, May 22, 2010

    Thanks for the tip.

    We have had Macs as long as we have had computers, except for a little Radio Shack back in the 1970's, and we love them. I have a Dell for my sewing machine, and I HATE it!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. CHRIS MURRAYSaturday, May 22, 2010

    i too am macbook virgin-bought mine after reading all your consumer posts before you bought yours-very helpful. thanks for all the tips. love my macbook but still find a lot of manipulations with it confusing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lisa McShaneSaturday, May 22, 2010

    Scary! Glad that there was a fix. I bought my new 21" iMac a week ago (yay!) and am getting used to it. It's gorgeous.

    My remaining challenge is to figure out and acquire personal and small business financial software. On my Dell laptop (AKA the black doorstop) I used Quicken for Home and Small Business and it was nice to have it all in one product so I could update all my accounts at once.

    I'd love to hear what works for others.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Making A MarkSunday, May 23, 2010

    Whoo-hoo all the new mac users!

    Lisa - apparently there is Quicken Essentials for Mac - but I think you might want to read this review first

    ReplyDelete
  6. Making A MarkSunday, May 23, 2010

    Or there's Quickbooks for Mac 2010

    ReplyDelete
  7. Robyn SinclairSunday, May 23, 2010

    Very handy, thank you. Now how do you eject a CD that the iMac thinks is in the drive but isn't? My HP printer software disk must have been damaged between our computers. Driving me mad, it is. I don't expect you to respond, Katherine, just thought I'd share.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Making A MarkSunday, May 23, 2010

    Oh - how annoying!

    Have you tried the "Force Eject" which I think is under the Disc Utility? Somewhere you've got a bit of software which thinks it's still inside and you need to identify that bit and then try an eject or a 'force eject'

    Did you get the support package? i bought it for mine as I'm a complete novice.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Robyn SinclairSunday, May 23, 2010

    Thanks, Katherine. I've done that but it has an annoying habit of reappearing even though I haven't inserted a disk. I will sort it out eventually. My problem is I'd rather look at art on line than sort software problems. My Technical Support is in the studio on the terrace :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Grace BlackSunday, May 23, 2010

    I had completely forgotten about the eject button that sits on the Mac. You are in the process of finding out that there is often more than one way to get something done on a Mac. About three Macs ago I found the eject button a bit useless as you can often still have the ghost of the disc on the screen after you eject so I stopped using it. Best way to eject any disc is to drag the image to trash and the Mac will safely eject the disc and the image

    ReplyDelete

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