Blank CDs don't eject

If I put a bank CD in my macbook, I get no CD icon on my desktop. If I press the eject button on the keyboard, nothing happens. The only way I have found to eject it, is to start up TOAST program, then quit that program, which automatically ejects it. Is there no simpler way?! It seems a little ridiculous.

Has anyone else had troubles with the eject button? Actually even with ordinary CDs or DVDs, I have often had the button do nothing at all, though I think sometimes it does work. Then when it does nothing I have to drag the icon to the garbage to eject it (though obviously for the problem I stated above that is not possible).

Thank you
Justin

Click on the desktop to get into the Finder, then go under the Finder menu-bar item and choose Preferences.

Click on General, then under "Show these items on the Desktop," click on "CDs, DVDs, and iPods."

A recent OS X software update added a couple of seconds delay to the eject button. Apparently too many people using laptops were hitting it accidentally. Or something.

But with CD visible, you can right-click it and eject it.

You can skip all the stuff going through Finder, and just hold the eject button. After a few seconds, it'll eject anything that's in the drive, unless the disc is being used by a program. If that still doesn't work (you see the eject icon on your screen, but the disc doesn't pop out), you might need to quit whichever program is "using" the disc- VLC, mac the ripper, whatever.

You have to hold down the eject button.

Not sure about that but you can hook them both up to your router or to each other using an Ethernet cable and go into Finder, go in the Network menu, Go in the Mshome folder and find your PC and connect to it.

Dunno bout firewire though.

Brown Study said:

Click on the desktop to get into the Finder, then go under the Finder menu-bar item and choose Preferences.

Click on General, then under "Show these items on the Desktop," click on "CDs, DVDs, and iPods."

Click to expand...

Well, ipods are shown and CDs with stuff on are shown. Always were. It was just the blank CDs that weren't showing.

smurfy said:

You have to hold down the eject button.

Click to expand...

Thank you for that. Now that is surely counterintuitive!!! I'm sure I used always to hear my brother claiming "Macs are so intuitive!" I just presumed that all the buttons on this Macbook were the same, you press it and it works. So I had been pressing the eject button, and nothing was working. I would even press it repeatedly, and nothing at all. Now that you have said hold it down, it is working. I would not have guessed that. Seems very silly to me, as if we should all be psychically reading the designers' minds!
Thanks for the info though
Justin

Justin said:

Well, ipods are shown and CDs with stuff on are shown. Always were. It was just the blank CDs that weren't showing.

Click to expand...

There's another setting in the System Preferences' CDs and DVDs pane. Change the top two to Open Finder.

Justin said:

Thank you for that. Now that is surely counterintuitive!!! I'm sure I used always to hear my brother claiming "Macs are so intuitive!" I just presumed that all the buttons on this Macbook were the same, you press it and it works. So I had been pressing the eject button, and nothing was working. I would even press it repeatedly, and nothing at all. Now that you have said hold it down, it is working. I would not have guessed that. Seems very silly to me, as if we should all be psychically reading the designers' minds!
Thanks for the info though
Justin

Click to expand...

I think it was in the 10.4.9 update (or was it 10.4.8?... anywho...) Apple put a delay action in the eject button because users were complaining they hit unnecessarily the eject key by mistake and their optical drive would eject their media so now users have to press the eject key a bit longer than before.

Brown Study said:

There's another setting in the System Preferences' CDs and DVDs pane. Change the top two to Open Finder.

Click to expand...

Woah, thanks. That seems weird. I thought "Open Finder" would mean open a "finder" window, when it is inserted. but actually it just puts an icon on the desktop exactly like I wanted. Thanks a lot! So is the mac term for "icon on desktop" then actually "finder"? I am trying to get used to this new kind of computer. Is that what a "finder" is?
Thanks
Justin

Justin said:

Woah, thanks. That seems weird. I thought "Open Finder" would mean open a "finder" window, when it is inserted.

Click to expand...

So did I, and we're not the only ones.

So is the mac term for "icon on desktop" then actually "finder"?

Click to expand...

Only in that misleading drop-down. It would be better if it said "Make visible in Finder." Better yet would be "Make visible on desktop."

Is that what a "finder" is?

Click to expand...

The Finder is the GUI's application, so if you think of it as such, Finder and the terms surrounding it might be easier to understand. (It's been compared to Windows' Explorer.)

The computer showing a file in (the) Finder might be compared to showing a file in Word. Since each is an application, the drop-down offering a choice to Open Finder is like a drop-down offering a choice to open Word.

Brown Study said:

So did I, and we're not the only ones.Only in that misleading drop-down. It would be better if it said "Make visible in Finder." Better yet would be "Make visible on desktop."

[...]

The computer showing a file in (the) Finder might be compared to showing a file in Word. Since each is an application, the drop-down offering a choice to Open Finder is like a drop-down offering a choice to open Word.

Click to expand...

But no program opens when I insert the CD. I tried it. All that happens is that an icon appears on my desktop. I think your suggestion that it would say "Make visible on desktop" is good. Hope someone is hearing us.

Justin