i have a dvd stuck in my mac pro...help!!!!

ok it was a stupid thing to do, but now i have a dvd in my mac pro, i cannot retrieve it, i cannot play it, i cannot start my mac, it just comes up a blank screen everytime i attempt to restart, please please help!!!

There isn't anything that should prevent your Mac from starting up...
Try this, shut it off, restart, hold down you mouse clicker. That will force (should) the drive to spit out the disk.

Start in safe mode - Power on and as soon as the start up tone is heard press and hold the shift key. When the grey apple appears release the shift key.

Once up and running command and E will spit out the DVD....I hope.

thanks, but still no luck, i tried holding down shift on srart up with no response at all, just grey screen, I also tried holding down the mouse button on start up, no response at all again, just a blank screen..

Here's another trick I found.
When you boot, hold down cmd+option+O+F and when you get to the command line type 'eject cd' hit enter then macboot or 'mac boot' (it tells you which one on the top of the screen)

Is the DVD a movie or is it your OS X disk?

Temporarily, if you are needing to get booted on your Mac, you could disconnect the optical drive.

Another I found with a little modification since you can't boot - while booting with the mouse button held down, also try inserting a cd partially into the slot under where it normally loads, kind of like trying to use a shim. Found several posts where this worked. (Would use a blank)

Believe it or not my local daily paper today has hints on how to deal with this.

1. eject button
2. Cmd-E
3. select the item in Finder & click the eject button next to its name
or
drag the item to the trash
or
hit the F12 key
4. open Disk Utility select the dvd and eject
5. restart Mac holding down the mouse button

If none of these work there's a couple more hints but involve going a little deeper.

cjay said:

Believe it or not my local daily paper today has hints on how to deal with this.

1. eject button
2. Cmd-E
3. select the item in Finder & click the eject button next to its name
or
drag the item to the trash
or
hit the F12 key
4. open Disk Utility select the dvd and eject
5. restart Mac holding down the mouse button

If none of these work there's a couple more hints but involve going a little deeper.

Click to expand...

If there are more - post them - as in, per his above posts the first 4 are out since he cannot boot his machine to try any of them and he has already tried the 5th one.

The OS doesn't have to boot in order for number 5 to work. It works before the apple logo even appears. I think it's a hard-coded hardware/firmware thingy.

yesssss, the cmd+option+O+F worked, I had to wait around 30 seconds for the apple to appear, thanks all for your help...

Glad to help hitower

If it happens in the future, and you have some time of your hands, read that little novella that came with your computer, the one about a little Mexican boy named Manual. I recommend the section where he becomes a troubleshooter, especially the big action scene on page 55.

Or, you can turn the computer off. Manually push the drive cover down to expose the drive behind it. And insert a paper clip in the eject pinhole that has been on every IDE optical drive since they were introduced. That's what Manual would have done.