Can't eject an install disc

I just got a 2009 mac mini with out an operating system installed. I inserted the wrong install disc ( Snow Leopard 10.6.3), and can't get the disc to eject. I've tried holding down the right button on the mouse at start up, hitting the eject button on the keyboard, holding down the option key at start up. No luck, any ideas?
Thanks
Tom

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Just purchased USB SuperDrive to connect MacBook air can't eject start up disc

just purchased USB SuperDrive to connect MacBook air can't eject start up disc? please advise

No, of course not. The "startup disk" is the disk with your boot volume (operating system) on it. Once you boot (startup) from it it is locked as your computer will not "run" without a valid "startup disk".
It would be similar to complaining that "I can't remove the engine from a running vehicle".

Can't Boot From Install Disc 1 ?

Holding down "C" at Start Up isn't working.
Most of the time I can't get Preferences > Start-Up to even "see" my Disc 1.
When I can get it to show up in Start-Up, and Select it, and Lock it ... it Still Won't Start Up from the Install Disc 1 ... and in fact usually ejects the disc.
Sometimes when I re-push in the disc, I get the message that a Blank Disc has been detected, "what do you want to do with it."
But, it shows up in Disc Utility, and when I run Verify Disc, it all looks good?!
The Disc has Mac OS version 10.4.8 on it. I'm running 10.5.7. I'm all up to date with my software.
Yesterday I ran the latest version of Disc Warrior. When I run TechTools 4.0 it seems to get stuck running Files. When I run Repair Permissions from Disc Utilities, it shows a fairly massive amount of issues. Running it over and over again doesn't seem to make any difference.
I WANT to run my Install Disc so I can run Repair Disc from Disc Utility ... because I'm having a number of issues ... and I seem to get the spinning rainbow a lot.
SUGGESTIONS ?! ... thanks ...

Disk Utility that can repair a 10.5.7 permissions is only found on the Leopard installer disc. Tiger can't repair Leopard when it comes to permissions, and may also have difficulty with the directory.
Secondly, if your MacBook Pro was purchased after October 26, 2007, it can't boot from any Tiger disc.
If your MacBook Pro was purchased prior, you can use the disk, but you'll want to follow these directions for hardware diagnostics:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303081
Only if your MacBook Pro has Tiger installed, should you use Tiger for the directory or permissions*:
http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
Macs can only boot from the operating system that shipped with them, and newer retail operating systems. This means:
1. pre-October 1st, 2007 MacBook Pros can boot off:
- - the discs that shipped with them
- - retail 10.5 discs which look like * that do not say Upgrade, DropIn, or OEM.
2. October 1st through October 25, 2007 can do #1, and also use Upgrade and DropIn discs. Those disks were offered as a limited time mail order Up to date program, some were dropped in the box that came with them.
3. October 26th through November 14, 2007 can boot off the discs that came with them, and retail 10.5.1, 10.5.4, and 10.5.6 discs that do not say Upgrade, DropIn, or OEM, and have a label like the image above.
4. November 15, 2007 through June 29, 2008 can boot off the discs that came with them, and the retail 10.5.4, and 10.5.6 discs that do not say Upgrade, DropIn, or OEM, and have a label like the image above.
5. June 30, 2008 through December 14, 2008 can boot off the discs that came with them, and the retail 10.5.6 discs that do not say Upgrade, DropIn, or OEM, and have a label like the image above.
6. December 15, 2008 and later MacBook Pros can only boot off the discs that came with them.
Presumably when Snow Leopard comes out in September, all of the above will be able to use Snow Leopard because of the specs on http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.
Message was edited by: a brody

HD crash and can't boot form install disc. . .

Hi there, this is the first Mac I've owned and it's a little under a year old. It's a Macbook Pro with an Intel Core Duo and OS X 10.4 Tiger. Last night my computer froze attempting to open iTunes and I restarted it by holding down the power button. Unfortunately every time I try to boot the computer I get the startup noise and a blank gray screen. I tried to reboot it several times last night before looking up potential fixes on another computer. I tried resetting the PRAM and was rewarded with a new screen: A blank gray screen with a flashing folder and question mark icon. After researching this I found it's indicative of a hard drive problem that can potentially be rectified with the disc utilities program on the install disc. However whenever I try to boot from the OS X install disc, by holding down "C" during a restart, nothing happens. Just the blank gray screen. The CD sounds like it's going to spin up but then abruptly stops. Thus I cannot run either disc utilities or the hardware diagnostic test. I have tried using both Install disc 1 and 2 with no success. The only key based startup commands I can get to work are resetting the PRAM and ejecting discs. Also when I start the computer the left front corner(?) makes a rhythmic "tic tic tic pause" noise for a couple of seconds. I suspect this is the hard drive attempting to spin up but am not sure. I am afraid that the HD is completely buggered beyond all repair but I would like to try either the disc utilities or the hardware test before I take it in for repairs. However if someone knows it's gone, I'll take it in right away.

If you are still in the one year warranty period, the repairs will be covered. You might want to consider getting 3 year Applecare before the one year warranty is up too. Especially on a Mac that has problems during its first year. 3 year Applecare is expensive, but generally less than almost any repair.
Good luck!

Just replaced my hard drive. Can't boot from install disc.

Hello all. I just bought a powerbook (1ghz) from a person I work with. The hard drive was not working and she did not want it anymore. I paid her for the computer and bought a new hard drive. With the new hard drive installed, I can not get it to read from the combo drive. I kept trying to boot to the install disc and it kept ejecting the dvd. Then I tried to boot to the hardware test.....still no luck. Then the combo drive started making a very loud noise and now it is not spinning and will not eject my disc. Any thoughts?
thanks in advance.
PowerBook G4 12" 1ghz

As a first step, I would have triple checked all the connections from the optical drive inside the powerbook.. but it's not unheard of for the drives to just die.
You can install MacOS X onto the system via an external firewire DVD drive (Firewire only, not USB2.0), or you can put the system into Firewire Target Disk Mode (hold down T as soon as you hear the startup sound), plug it into another Mac, and run the installer on that system, or you can buy a new DVD drive (such as the Pioneer K06 for around $100, or have a look in the drive compatibility database at xlr8yourmac.com).
I hope you got the Powerbook for a good price...

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I decided to breathe some new life in to my 2007 2.2GHz MacBook by:
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What I've already done:
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3. Replaced the previous 2gb (1x1gb) with the new 2x2gb RAM sticks
4. Swapped out the HDD with the SSD
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I was finally able to get it done using my old RAM, so that must be the weak link. I'm going to try to return the RAM I bought and try a different brand. Thanks For the response!

Can't boot from install disc

I have my new Mac Pro setup so now I turn my attention to my old one (1.1). I wanted to reformat by boot drive and do a clean install of Snow Leopard. So, I pulled out my install disc that came with the MP and restart with the "C" held. It acts like it is going to work and then my grey screen turns a shade darker and I get the following message in about 3 or 4 different languages. "Your system must be restarted. Hold down the power key for several seconds." Essentially I was wanting to run Disk Utility to reformat the drive and then install Snow Leopard. Any ideas? Thanks

I punted. Had a newer HD sitting on the desk so I reformatted that one and switched it with my boot drive. Held down C with Snow Leopard in and the installation has started. Still can't figure out why I could not boot to my original install disc though.

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Yesterday, my hard drive died (disk warrior informed me, that HD had irrecoverable errors, and my iMac would shut down unless it was booted from the Disk Warriorr disc).
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Suggestions?
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Return it to the repair station.

Can't boot from Install Disc while trying to isntall a new hard drive...

So last week my macbook 4 froze. I powered it down and when restarting, got the grey screen and apple logo and spinning wheel underneath. After about 3 minutes the machine would just shut off.
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With the new drive in and the Install Disc in, regular start up get's me the blinking folder.
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Thanks

Perhaps the setting on the replacement hard disk drive is not correct
for the computer configuration you are using it in. There are such items
as jumper-pin settings: Master, Slave, auto-detect; and so on.
If the hard disk drive and the optical drive have a similar setting, neither
one could be in a position to do much.
Since I am unfamiliar with the correct settings for your computer, perhaps
someone who has more information and/or experience will reply to this.
Good luck & happy computing!

How can i eject a mini disc?

I inserted a mini-disc on my mac and now I can't see it anywhere and it is stuck
How can I eject it?

Well, you can try:
Five ways to eject a stuck CD or DVD from the optical drive
Ejecting the stuck disc can usually be done in one of the following ways:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the
      left mouse button until the disc ejects.
2. Press the Eject button on your keyboard.
3. Click on the Eject button in the menubar.
4. Press COMMAND-E.
5. If none of the above work try this: Open the Terminal application in
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        /usr/bin/drutil eject
If this fails then try this:
Boot the computer into Single-user Mode. At the prompt enter the same command as used above. To restart the computer enter "reboot" at the prompt without quotes.
But this only works if it's a tray drive. If it's a slot drive all you can do is try to shake it out or take it in for service.

How can I start from install disc without shutting down Mac?

Sorry. that last post wasn't so clear. I started the computer without a password, but I think when I was trying to set my own password I may
have re-activated the old one.
I'm afraid that if I shut it down I won't be able to restart it?- (for starting over from install discs)
What Have I Done?
This is a hard one. Can anyone help?

Put the disk inside the slot.
Hit the restart button.
Hold down the c key as your computer is booting.

Can I use the install disc from my macbook to upgrade my imac from Tiger?

I have an imac which is on Tiger. I recently bought a macbook which is on snow leopard. I have the install discs for Snow Leopard and I was wondering if I could use them to upgrade my imac.
Also, if I can, will it delete existing files and software that's already on it?
Thanks.

No. Besides being illegal the DVD that came with MacBook are hardware specific to it and will either not work at all or not work properly if you attempt to use them on the iMac.
Just go out and buy the $29 DVD for Snow Leopard. It is easier that way.
Allan

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Two days ago my 2008 Mac Pro got a green screen that froze up the entire system. After a few minutes I decided to force power down by holding the power button. Since then I receive a kernel panic every time I boot up in Mac OS.
I run bootcamp and I'm able to boot up Vista 32 bit okay. After the system went down my video card, NVidia 8800GT, was no longer being loaded in Windows due to and error (43). I tried installing old drivers, new drivers, and today I finally bought a new video card, NVidia GTX 285 Mac. The new card works great in Windows, but I'm still unable to load up Mac OS.
I've tried resetting the PRAM. I've also tried booting up off of the 10.5 install disc to try a fresh install, but I get kernel panics even when I do that. I connected the Mac to another Mac using target disc mode and using Verify Disk it detected no errors. I used the Apple Hardware Test and again the Mac detected no problems. I've reseated the RAM in the cpu and disconnected all usb and firewire devices. I've called Apple support and they told me to do all of these things I just mentioned. After all of that I even tried erasing the Mac HD partion of the hard drive thinking that it might erase a problematic file or at least let me do an install on a fresh drive (thankfully I made an exteral backup of all my Mac files when I had it in target disk mode). I'm at a loss of what else to try other than taking it into a mechanic. Has anyone experienced this before or have any ideas?

Your OS X system sounds hosed. However, getting a kernel panic trying to start from an installer disc is usually a good sign of hardware failure. If you aren't using the original installer disc that came with the computer, then that could be a problem - wrong version for the machine. Or the installer disc itself is defective.
If your Boot Camp partition is on a different drive, then I'd suspect the hard drive but you believe it's OK. This could be a problem with RAM. However, I would look for another suitable installer disc you can try that boots the same version of OS X that was installed originally on your machine.

Computer doesn't boot. can't boot from install discs

my quicksilver g4 running on os 10.3.9 has been booting up very, very slowly and once booted running slowly as well. so i was able to verify & repair permissions. however then the computer wouldn't boot up from the boot drive at all. i tried booting up from the install discs but when i tell it to boot up from the install disc it keeps returning to the installation menu. none of my installation discs (3) actually say on the label that they can booted from so i'm wondering if they're bootable. i try to run disk utility but it says it reading configuration for a very long time and never goes anywhere. i was able to run the hardware tests and it tells the video ram test failed with error code disp/13/2. can anyone shed some light on this mess? thanks.

Hi! The video card failed test could be the result of the machine having a different card than the stock one that came in it or it could mean it's actually bad. The install discs are bootable by definition "IF" they are the correct ones for that machine. Retail OSX install discs are bootable but machine specific discs are only bootable on specific machines. The slow boot could be a bad hard drive. I would unhook the hard drive and try booting from the install disc to see if it will boot that way. Hold the "c" key down at startup with the disc inserted. Tom

Auto Eject of Install Disc

I was testing out my Mac OS X Leopard install disk (v 10.5 Family Pack) in anticipation of erasing and reformatting my hard drive. Once slotted in, the CD/DVD drive does all its usual noises but then automatically ejects the disk.
I have a MacBook 2,1 - 2Ghz, 1GB RAM, running OS 10.5.8.
The disk image never shows up on my desktop display.
The Install DVD reads and works fine on my other computer (a Mac Mini).
Other DVDs read and work fine on the MacBook.
Any ideas as to why this particular (and rather vital!) disk isn't working and how I can get it to work?
Thanks,
JY
Message was edited by: jytessier

You probably should make a backup copy of that disc for safe keeping. Refer to this article for instructions: http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/back_disc

Can't eject an install disc

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