Ejecting a Stuck CD or DVD from Mac Mini
November 1st, 2007 at 8:46 pm (Mac OS X)
If the disc is stuck in the drive but not mounted (i.e. doesn’t show up in the finder), and everything else has failed (eject button, F12, Cmd-E etc), and you want to eject the disk without having to reboot – for all you “uptime” junkies 
– then try this in a terminal window:
drutil tray eject
and hit return. If that doesn’t work, try:
drutil list
This lists all removable drives you have connected.
Then type:
drutil tray eject n
where “n” is the number of the drive to be ejected.
Thanks to MacFixIt.com for this
toubabou said,
December 10, 2007 at 11:37 am
I would also think that you could open Disk Utility and eject the disk from there. Disk Utility is aware of loaded devices that are not mounted.
wickedlush said,
December 10, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Unfortunately, Disk Utility didn’t work for me in this instance – which is why I was happy to find a lower-level way of doing it. Worth trying though – thanks for the comment
william said,
January 20, 2008 at 1:42 am
yeah my wife stuck a dvd cleaner disc into our mac mini, it would not mount, it kept trying to force it out but due to the “little brushes” on the cleaning disk, it was jammed.
i googled some advice and turning the mini upside down and, re-booting, and for good measure holding the mouse button Worked!
Super Dave Osbourne said,
January 25, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Have MacMini 1.83 core 2 duo. OS X 10.4.10 with VMWare installed. Have GNUstep Live 1.0 CD and booting. No problem until I force quit during a reinstall of GNUstep attempt while trying to save time between reboots of the VM. Now CD is stuck in drive, and both the above drutil tray eject and drutil tray eject 1 do not work. Disk util does not see the device, or the CD media in said device. Time to reboot (shame on apple) to eject a CD. I thought times had advanced to the point where software was tested and the OS wouldn’t get confused like this… I guess not.
MrMaDSeN said,
April 13, 2008 at 10:31 pm
DVD of mine is stuck in a mac mini core duo 1.83. Nothing of the above seems to help. Drive spins up and down constantly and freezes when I try to use disk utility. It can see the drive but I can not get to point on the EJECT button.
I am really stuck here…. whats my options.. Return it to the Apple store?
wickedlush said,
September 17, 2009 at 10:46 am
If you have VMWare running (maybe the same with parallels??), and cannot eject a disk, or if you have a Mac Pro and cannot open the CD tray, then it may be because VMWare is controlling the superdrive. Recently, I had this issue – the eject button would not open the superddrive, and the menu-bar eject button showed the superdrive grayed out. In the end, I looked at the VMWare settings, and unchecked “connected” under “CDs & DVDs”, and I was able to open the drive…
Chronos said,
January 22, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Here is a solution for a stuck disc in the CD drive of a Mac Mini when all other posted procedures seem to fail and before you grab a screwdriver, butterknife or spatula …
(This applies to Mac Mini OS X 10.6.2, 2.26 GHz Intel Core Duo)
1. Shut down the Mac Mini
2. Connect a corded USB keyboard to the Mini
3. On the keyboard, press and hold the D key, then press the button to start the Mini (keep pressing the D key until hell freezes over)
4. Eventually, a window appears that says Apple Hardware Test Version 3A150 (you might be asked to select English as your language of choice before you see the test version)
5. Click on the Test button to start the hardware test (the option for the lengthier test is not necessary)
6. Once the test is over, the results will likely say that everything is okay. Choose the option to SHUT DOWN the Mini.
7. Suddenly, the CD will be ejected from the Mini.
This worked for me when all other methods failed. I must give thanks to Kris for helping me find this solution.
Chronos