Q&A for How to Remove a Stuck CD/DVD From Your Computer

CD/DVD drives have a little hole somewhere at the front. You need something really thin and strong like a sewing needle. Stick it in the hole and you should feel a slight click -- this is manual ejection.

Most CD readers have a small pin-sized hole in the front. A straightened paper clip carefully pushed into this hole will typically release or push out the CD draw. Please refer to manual and do at your own risk.

Typically you find the CD drive on your desktop or Finder, right click and select Eject. Failing that, there may be a small pin size hole around the CD drive where a paper clip inserted releases the drive (not on laptops).

The best thing to do is get it fixed by a professional, but if you want to try it yourself, open the terminal in the Applications/Utilities folder and run: "drutil eject". Alternatively, restart your computer with the mouse button held down. If all else fails, you may have to open up the optical drive manually.

That is a very rare case. In such an event, there is no option but to take your system to an IT expert. Trying to pry out the CD may damage the DVD/CD drive. To remove it, the DVD/CD drive needs to be opened up.

In such an event, there is no option but to take your system to an IT expert. Trying to pry out the CD may damage the DVD/CD drive. To remove it, the DVD/CD drive needs to be opened up.

Remove the screws from the computer so you can pull off the side panel. Your disk is likely inside the computer itself.

All device CD-Rom players have a pin hole in front of the CD-tray. Somewhere there's a small pin-hole to stick a paper-clip into to unlock the mechanism to slide open. If it doesn't have a pin hole, then you need to go to your Windows Root Directory where you see C:\ and D:\drives. Click on the D:\ drive click on your mouse to open the drives menu to "Open the Tray/CD" device.