If you can't get a disk out, and you cant force it out, and your MAC then can't start up because it tries to read off the disk first ... what do you do? Is there no way of getting a CD/DVD out of the drive manually when switched off?

This might sound like a joke, but the answer is - just leave your computer on for at least fifteen minutes and the CD/DVD will pop out and your Mac boot as normal.

I did a mistake when leaving a Windows Vista installation DVD in my MacBook, it just hanged with a grey screen, nothing happened. But 15 minutes later the DVD ejected.

If the DVD is visible in the FINDER use this to eject.

I had a similar problem once. I got the DVD out by holding the edject button on the keyboard while the mac was booting.

Hold down the mouse click button as it's starting up, or hold down ALT and choose your HDD when it's started up and eject it normally as you would from within OS X.

Thanks all.

For me, I use the Disk Utility for this. This can always eject the DVD or CD as long as you can start up the mac and launch it.

 

JK 

tom:

I had a similar problem once. I got the DVD out by holding the edject button on the keyboard while the mac was booting.

What Tom's suggesting is the recommended procedure. However, unless you have chosen the installation disk as your startup disk, then the startup should default to the system installed on your computer's harddrive, and you don't have to worry about whether the installation disk will launch as startup system.

You can also hold down the Option-key (alt) during startup, then you'll be asked which startup disk you wish to use, you can pick the harddisk, and then eject the disk image when you get to the desktop.

Disk utility can also be used. 

If your disk image for some reason has gone invisible, then you can relaunch the finder from the Force Quit menu, which is available under the Apple symbol or through  Command+Option+Escape. Highlight Finder and choose relaunch. I'd only recommend this if things are jammed up, as ideally you should restart your computer after a Finder relaunch, to ensure that harddisk management retains integrity.