How to eject a CD stuck in an iMac superdrive with a small card

Many iMac superdrives will not eject a certain type of CD/DVD. It is not an OS problem where the CD does not appear in the mounted devices/drives. The mechanism will try to eject the DVD, you hear the eject noise, but nothing. The CD will spin up and is automatically remounted.

You can always try the command "drutil eject" in the console or right click in Disk utility, but it will not work if the problem is mechanical. All standard attempts using hotkeys rebooting with specials keys pressed etc... does not work.

The card trick works 99% of the time on the two first attempts. The card dimensions is 3.5 x 0.75 inches or 9 x 2 cm. Use a thick card paper or plastic (credit cards are too thick).
You need to insert at the right spot and the correct depth. The top of my card is 2 inches from bottom of the superdrive slot, and the card is inserted 2 inches slightly slanted toward the front to pass in front of the CD. Check the video at the end and note that the card is in the front.

1. Drag the CD/DVD icon to the Trash, reboot the Mac and hold down the mouse button, or the "Eject" button on your keyboard.
2. Launch Apple's Disk Utility application, select the stuck CD/DVD and hit the "Eject" button.
3. Using the Terminal, enter the following command: drutil eject

Apple paper clip 'Method' bit.ly/12oh9kE
Apple Reset SMC bit.ly/12ohYtH