David Walliams (no, not him - we asked) writes: 

I have an old Panasonic Toughbook and after years of good service, the CD eject button has stopped working. The the drive on this model sits under the keyboard and the flip-up lid is under the wrist-rest.

The problem is that the tiny manual eject hole is on the underside and it's a pain to turn the laptop upside-down just to eject the drive. The drive works perfectly otherwise, so I'd rather fix it than replace it -- is there a way to eject the CD drive with software?

Good news -- yes, you can use software. Better news -- the software is free. It’s called AutoHotKey and you can find full instructions about using it to eject an optical drive after the cut.

AutoHotKey is a scripting tool that can perform all manner of useful functions – we last used it to automatically correct spelling mistakes in any Windows application. Using it to eject a CD or DVD drive it pretty easy and all you need to is insert the appropriate commands. Here's how:

Step 1
If you have AutoHotKey installed and running already, skip to step 2, else download and install it – the default settings are fine. Start the program from Start > AutoHotKey and click Yes when prompted to create a sample script.

Step 2
AutoHotKey runs in the Windows Notification Area – right-click its icon and select Edit This Script. Notepad will open with AutoHotKey’s default script – the one that automatically loads whenever the program starts. We’re going to modify this script to include a DVD drive eject command.

Step 3
Delete the two sample commands – everything between the #z on line 21 and return on line 28.

Step 4
Add the following text somewhere in the file – it doesn’t matter where:

#z::
Drive, Eject
return

The #z is the shortcut – in this case, Win key + Z. You can change the z to any key, but don’t choose one that Windows already uses (such as Win + E – this opens an Explorer window).

Step 5
Save the file and close Notepad. Now press Win + Z and the optical drive should eject. The final step is to create a shortcut to AutoHotKey in your Startup folder so that the program starts with Windows – or you can just start it manually.

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Website:
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.25

3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

---

Bookmark with: