How to forcibly eject a CD/DVD from a MacBook Air USB SuperDrive

So you've got a DVD stuck in the external USB SuperDrive that connects to the MacBook Air? And you've tried hitting the magic Eject button on the keyboard to no avail?

And you've tried drutil tray eject at the command-line? And you've tried booting with Option held down and clicking eject? And you've tried plugging the drive into other machines (Macs, Windows PCs, Linux machines) to no avail?

What do you do?

Clearly you hit the physical eject button, right? Every DVD drive has one of those. On the SuperDrive you first look for it on the front:

Hmm. Nothing there. Perhaps it's one of those pinhole things on the back.

Or on one side:

Or, heart in hand, the other side:

I know, I know. Jonny Ive hid it on the bottom out of sight, right? It's so obvious now. Put a pinhole on the bottom where it will only be seen when needed. Form and functionality in one. Sleek lines when in use. An accessible emergency button when needed. Genius.

Nope. But, phew, at least there's an Apple logo there. I was beginning to worry.

So, the easy procedure for removing the disk is as follows. First you pry open the case with some thin available tool:

Then you remove the six screws holding the drive into the case:

Then you turn the drive over in anticipation of seeing your DVD only to be thwarted by another cover and a set of screws:

And then, finally, you peel back the cover to see your DVD and remove it.

Once reassembled the drive complains about the missing disk and promptly goes back to working normally.

And then you wonder to yourself. The drive inside the case is a Sony NEC Optiarc AD-5630A. And every other drive that Sony sells has a physical eject button, even the slot loading ones. Did Apple hide it? Did they ask Sony to not provide a button? I'm guessing that the Cypress Semiconductor microcontroller inside there knows all about doing an emergency eject.

Of course, you stop worrying about that and wonder how the cable has managed to fray on this barely used drive:

PS Some people have pointed out that there may be a secret lever inside the drive accessible from the front by sticking a thin screwdriver inside. I can't find any reliable mechanism (although jamming the DVD in place using a wad of paper and rebooting does work).

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