While using a Windows VM on my MacBook today, I needed some files off a Windows install disk. I put the disk is with no problems, did what I needed to do, and then tried to eject it. You can imagine my suprise when I could hear the drive (making its really ugly crunching sound) and then – no disk.

So I pressed eject again. Nothing.

And again. Nothing. hrmm. This wasn’t looking good.

So I went back to OSX, and the disk wasn’t being detected by OSX – despite working fine the VM. I pressed the eject button. Nothing. I logged off (thinking some app had locked the superdrive). Pressed eject. Nothing. Rebooted, holding the mouse button down(I’d heard this does an eject if done on boot) – still nothing.

I was worried.

In a last ditch attempt, I found the terminal command ‘drutil tray eject’ which made the right sounds, but didn’t eject the disk. hrmm, getting closer. I thought to myself “I wonder if it’s stuck on something?” and then (and I have to admit that I felt like i was molesting my Mac) – stuck the tip of a plastic cable tie into the slot poked around a bit (a little, just enough to feel some resistance inside) and tried ‘drutil tray eject’ again in the terminal window.

The disk ejected, like a good little MacBook.