I’ve read gobs of web pages devoted to explaining how to get the DVD out. Most of them are really missing key details. It’s a lot of stick this in here, stick that in there, try cardboard, try credit card, try one plastic card above and below. It’s unclear how far to push the card in or even what it’s supposed to be doing! Some even involve the terminal, where one can issue commands to unmount the DVD and even eject it, which really don’t seem to help.

A big problem is that there are no pictures of the inner working of the super drive, showing what’s going on and what one is trying to accomplish.

Yours was the first place that at least discussed a key element– that physical barrier in the middle of the drive that comes up after the drive is inside.

I was leery, though, of inserting a metallic object into the drive–and wasn’t certain how far to go with or exactly what to do.

I found, however, a comment somewhere that another key is stopping the DVD from spinning. And that can be done with a plastic card.

HERE ARE SOME DIRECTIONS!!

Here’s what worked for me. I did not have to reboot the laptop, hold it at an angle, shake it, hold it upside down, etc.

THE ESSENCE

It involves sticking the *corner* of a plastic card in from the left-side of the drive, contacting the DVD to prevent it from moving, pressing the eject button, and being ready to grab the DVD when it comes out.

THE STEPS (in detail, to ensure this works!)

1. Make sure that the DVD drive is not operating. No sounds, no spinning.

2. Close all applications that could be using the DVD drive, or are using it, for example, DVD Player.

3. Take a plastic card (not cardboard), such as a vend-o-card or copying card (for Kinko’s, university copiers). I’ll bet a credit card would work.

4. You insert the *corner* edge of the card at an angle (about 45 degrees) coming in from the left side of the drive. (This is for a 2008 Intel based MacBook Pro.) You do not stick this card into the center of the drive, or straight in at the left side.

5. It’s going into the drive at an angle.

6. You want to make contact with the round edge of the DVD that’s in there. You’ll have to take some time to find this and get a feel for the DVD.

7. —->> The key is that you are pressing it up against the DVD. You want to prevent the drive from spinning after you press the eject button on the next step. <<—–

8. BE READY TO GRAB THE DVD WHEN IT COMES OUT ON THIS NEXT STEP.

9. While holding the card against the DVD, press and hold down the eject key for a couple of seconds (the eject symbol will show up on the screen).

10. There will be the usual eject, spinning, horrible sounding noises… but the DISK WILL POP OUT.

11. Grab it quickly, pull it out, and breathe a big sigh of relief!

12. From here, if you are under Apple Care, send the laptop in. I’m not sure I’m ready to go through this again and I have other problems AC needs to cover.

I hope this helps someone. It could still use pictures–both of how to hold the plastic card, where it slides in; but also of the inner working of the DVD drive so that one can tell what they are trying to do.

Appreciate the blog post here, though, as it helped in my quest for a solution to this!

TRY THE SHAKING METHOD

1) Sit in a chair.
2) Hold your mac book pro
3) fall down and drop your mac book pro
4) CD comes out .

It was a “kodak” moment.

Who knew ..falling down would actually do me something good? ..Downside you might scrapped your elbow.