[Maayan]

So I was over at my friend's house to help him rip his CD collection into his brand-new 14" iBook G4. We were watching an episode of "Six Feet Under" as we worked, you know, just kickin' back -- so, I mean, you could've hardly blamed me for absent-mindedly sticking a 3" minature compact disk into the slot drive. When I panicked and force-inserted a regular-sized CD in the hopes of "tricking" the computer into ejecting the lot of them, well, okay, that was pretty bad judgement on my part.

We've tried spamming the terminal with the "drutil eject" command while shaking the iBook on its side, unfortunately to no avail. We've also tried scraping at the jammed CDs with a pair of tweezers and a folded business card, but -- you guessed it -- still no dice.

Does the next step involve taking the iBook to the nearest computer retailer? Eww...

NOTABLE EDIT: I had the wild idea of purchasing a pair of VictoriNox tweezers and then attempting to pry out the CDs with those -- they're flat, skinny, and worth a try. However, you guys wouldn't happen to be familiar with any similar-but-made-expressedly-for-computer-use tools, would you?

[brettcamp]

I'm guessing that you'll probably have to have them surgically extracted. But just in case, here's info from an AppleCare Knowledge Base article that tells the different ways of getting a disk to eject. If they're jammed, these probably won't help, but worth trying, I guess. good luck!


Ejecting a disc when all else fails

If you've tried all the usual methods of ejecting a CD or DVD disc from your computer's optical drive (click "Tell me more" if you're not sure), there are some manual methods you can try.

First, quit all applications that are using files on the disc. Then try one of these alternate methods:

Choose Apple menu > Restart and hold the mouse key down until the disc ejects.
Put the computer to sleep (using the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences) and insert a large, straightened paper clip in the small emergency eject hole of the drive (the location varies, depending on the drive). Push firmly until the disc ejects.
Use Open Firmware to eject the disc if all other methods fail (this may not work on all computers). To use this method, you have to start up and briefly use the computer using Open Firmware, not the standard Mac OS X desktop. This is a simple procedure-try it if you're feeling adventurous

To eject a disc using Open Firmware:

Restart the computer.
When you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Command-Option-O-F keys. (The Command key has an Apple on it.)
Release the keys when you see a white screen that says "Welcome to Open Firmware."
At the prompt, type:

eject cd
Press Return, then wait a few seconds. The disc drive should eject the disc, and "ok" appears on the screen when the action is complete.
Type:

mac-boot
Press Return.

If youíre running Mac OS X, reboot the Mac (press the Reset
switch if necessary) and, as soon as you hear the startup tone,
press and hold the X key. Release the X key after the Mac has
finishes booting up into Mac OS X. Open iTunes and press the
Eject button and pray that the disc comes out.