How to eject a CD from a CD drive?

[Lori Kleinberg]

My cd drive will not open, hence I can not remove the cd from it.
It was working fine all morning while I performed some back-ups to various cd's. Then all of a sudden this last one would not write correctly, so I was going to eject and use a new blank cd.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Frank Townend]

There should be a small hole about the size (thickness) of a paperclip on the drive. Push a paperclip into the hole, the CD tray should open.

[Mitchell Andrus]

There should be a small hole about the size (thickness) of a paperclip on the drive. Push a paperclip into the hole, the CD tray should open.

If that doesn't work, use a hammer and a credit card.

...see avatar.
.

[Chuck Wintle]

There should be a small hole about the size (thickness) of a paperclip on the drive. Push a paperclip into the hole, the CD tray should open.

what Frank said! Just straighten the paperclip and the push straightened part firmly into the very tiny hole just below the tray.

[Lori Kleinberg]

Thanks for the quick responses. The paper clip and hole is not working. I assume the tip about the hammer and credit card is a joke. Any other suggestions.

Thanks Chris for fixing the post. I was in a hurry.

[Ben Rafael]

There should be a small hole about the size (thickness) of a paperclip on the drive. Push a paperclip into the hole, the CD tray should open.

Not all cd's have a hole.

[Jason Beam]

You sometimes have to give a good push on the paper clip on some drives. One of mine almost always bends the paper clip JUST as it slides open enough for me to grab it and pull the tray out.

[Frank Townend]

I'm with Jason, if there is a hole, the paper clip should work. I will say, it isn't a straight push in the paper clip - door opens. You may need to play with it a bit. In some cases a 'bit' might be several minutes of trying. You will feel resistance (kinda like pushing a stick with a spring on the other end of it.)

Now if the CD is half on / half off the tray you may have an issue. In that case it is best to remove the drive; shake it around a little; and then try the paper clip. Most machine manufacturers have instructions for removing drives, etc., but I would continue to try with the paper clip.

[David DeCristoforo]

"I assume the tip about the hammer...is a joke..."

Not totally. If the disk is in the tray "cockeyed" you may need to (lightly) smack things around a bit because the disk can jam the tray. A credit card can be used to push the disk down to allow the tray to open.

[Lori Kleinberg]

Thanks guys. It took a whole bunch of jiggling around with the paper clip and pushing the eject button with a screw
driver at the same time.
It was enough to get the cd out, but will have to use something other then that cd drive for back ups in the future.
Thanks again for your help

[Tim Morton]

in the mac world you would hold down the mouse while you restart..i wonder if there is something like that in the PCworld?

I would not recommend this, but since macs don't have tray load CD;s any longer...on a slot load CD, if you push somethign like a thin plastic ruler into the slot and just kind of nudge the CD, it will ussually "error out " and eject the disk on its own...but again i am not recommending you do that on your computer:o

[David G Baker]

I never had luck with the small paper clips, the larger ones have always worked.

[Frank Townend]

Excellent Lori, glad we could help.

[Colin Giersberg]

It used to be that you could go in "Control Panel" or "My Computer", find the drive and right click on it. From there, you could tell it to eject.

It may have been a few more steps than that, but that may still work.

Regards, Colin

ps. I am running Windows Vista, and that operation may still be available, but I am too lazy to try and find it. We went from '98 to Vista in a single jump, so there are quite a lot of things that I can't find or figure out anymore, but may in fact still be there.

[Danny Thompson]

An external hard drive is GREAT for backups.

[Peter Stahl]

Internal CD drives are easy to install. I'm no computer genuis and have done several. I have a DVD and CD burner in my old Pentium 4 tower. Just make sure you unplug it and touch the frame before you touch any thing inside. Should just be a couple screws holding it in and 2 cables. Lots of places like Newegg on the internet to get them cheap. BB and CC might even have one on sale.

[Dave Lehnert]

My computer does that from time to time. If I shut down and reboot the computer it will then work.
Just something to try next time.