2002 eMac, 700Mhz, 640MB RAM, not booting up… “just displaying some text”. Her friend had told her that meant it was a kernel panic, the young lady feared the worst as she entrusted her machine to my care and I informed her solemnly that the worst in this case could mean a £300+ logic-board replacement. She began eyeing the new iMacs, pragmatic even as she mourned her poor eMac.

Turns out a home-burned Tiger disc was in the drive, causing the machine to hang at boot.

Presenting “ways to remove a troublesome boot disc from your eMac”, in order of obviousness:

1. As the machine boots, hold the eject key on your keyboard.

2. Open the white flap on the front of the disc drive, and use a pen or something thing to push the eject button lurking therein.

3. As above, but stuff a paper-clip down the emergency eject hole.

4. Hold down the mouse button as your machine boots.

5. Hold alt as it boots, so as to be presented with a list of things the machine thinks are bootable. Now press the eject key.

6. Boot into open-firmware and type “eject-disc”.

7. Lug your eMac all the way down to the local Apple Reseller, covered in plastic bags to protect against the rain, and pay them £58.05 to perform any one of the above.

NB – all but #2 and #3 work on any mac, not just eMacs