Re: When the going gets weird - Mac Mini

From: Paul Mather <paul_at_gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2023 16:38:34 UTC 
On Mar 1, 2023, at 10:37 AM, paul beard <paulbeard@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 11:02 PM Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au <mailto:smithi@nimnet.asn.au>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> It's been too quiet here anyway <&^}=
>> 
>> I guess it's beyond Apple to have almost invisible holes in their gear.  From most Thinkpad manuals:
>> 
>> "If the tray still does not open, make sure that the computer is running, and insert the end of a straightened paper clip into the emergency eject hole. The tray will open."
>> 
>> cheers, Ian
>> 
> 
> 
> Apple kit used to have the eject hole but it disappeared year ago…not sure if the suppliers stopped making drives with that facility or if Apple redesigned the cases to obscure it. I think w/in MacOS you can force eject disks w software (diskutll eject might do it). 


It used to be that if you held down the mouse button when the system was starting up then it would force-eject the disc in the optical drive.  It looks like this is still true: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255

(For newer Apple Silicon Macs it looks like you need to boot into Recovery Mode and from there you can access Disk Utility, which will let you eject the disc.)

Cheers,

Paul.