[Clive]

I have a dead MacBook Pro, really dead – it won't boot at all, or even light up, no sound when you press the power button. Just to be clear, it really *is* dead, no power manager reset is going to magically start it up.

But, there's a CD stuck inside it. There doesn't appear to be a manual eject button on the drive, so how does one extract the CD?

[cherry su]

1. Take apart the computer and remove the optical drive.
2. Get a PC that normally uses a slimline optical drive. Remove that drive and connect the MBP's drive to it.
3. Eject the CD in Windows.
4. Put everything back together.

This works. I tried it before.

[Clive]

For real!? Surely if you have the drive out of the case you don't need to put it in another machine just to get the CD to eject - isn't there a "hidden" eject button?

[dowNNshift]

Clive -- unfortunatly, the fail safe is holding down the mouse button when you boot.

Otherwise you have to take the MacBook to an AASP or Apple Store Genius bar (to keep the unit within warranty) so they can manually take out the drive and recover your disc by opening the optical drive.

For starters, how'd this unit get dead? Would replacing the battery or power brick with known good ones remedy the situation.

If you spilled a liquid on or dropped the MacBook Pro, then your warranty is toast -- so you can visit iFixit and get the tear down instructions yourself. Be sure to use the screw guide so you don't get confused on which-screw-goes-where when you're putting it back together.

[Clive]

Originally Posted by dowNNshift 

For starters, how'd this unit get dead? Would replacing the battery or power brick with known good ones remedy the situation.

It’s a long story.

To cut it short, it really is dead, and it’s out of warranty (a battery or power supply isn't going to fix it).