Have you ever got your favorite CD or DVD stuck in the drive in your Mac? Has it ever happened to you to have your CD or DVD inserted properly but just make sounds dead yak and get jammed up? Did iTunes have problems reading your disk?. Chances are the answer to those questions and many other such issues is a resounding Yes. There are several quick fixes you can do to try and get you out of their misery, without having to pull your nearest Mac Genius Bar or, worse, send in aid.
The best known and most common of these is the “paper clip trick.” This is exactly what it sounds like. You take a common paper clip big headed. Keep it as straight as you can by straightening curves as much as possible. Let your bending back a bit when gripping. Stick clip the business end of the CD tray and try to trigger the mechanism that leaves the disk. Keep it straight!
Otherwise you could damage the drive or disc and still get the Genius Bar. Credit card trick work a little better with optical drives on the MacBook’s. This requires a credit card slip in the CD and giving him the push to make pop up on the shaft .. This damage could also drive (or drive), if you’re not careful. It works similar to jimmying a door open with a credit card when you leave the keys behind and have to go back to your home. You can also try to restart the laptop and send it out to hard drive. You can do this by holding down the trackpad while holding down the power button. This is as reliable as paper clip and credit card methods, but at least it will not damage the disc or drive .. If you’re a junkie DRUTIL Terminal you can type out instead of holding down the track pad during a reboot. Oddly enough, the MacBook line is affected by the simplest of all evils: gravity. If your laptop is not as it should be when you are putting into the CD drive or DVD’s use could become blocked. The same goes for cleaning dirty discs are also more likely to get stuck than clean.
If all else fails, try flipping over the MacBook and then try to gently remove the disc from a position where the keyboard is facing down. Sometimes, just pop it helps release the pressure on the shaft. This post was inspired by an afternoon of trying all the above repairs to avoid a trip to the Genius Bar yesterday. The credit card trick ended up working for me, but I would be interested to hear tips on tricks that have worked for you when faced with a stuck disc.