> Of course, if for some reason none of your Macs will even POST or you happen to be Mac-less, and you're nowhere within driving distance of someone with a work

> Of course, if for some reason none of your Macs will even POST or you happen to be Mac-less, and you're nowhere within driving distance of someone with a working Mac or an Apple Store the, yes, disassembling the drive is probably a reasonable option. You forget the part about the damaged cable like what can be seen on a few pictures. If the link between the MacBook and the drive is severed, there is no way a firmware on the laptop could cause the disk to eject. And with no forcible eject trigger you're left with the 'cracking the case open' solution. Shouldn't happen more than once per drive though, so I guess this is why Apple couldn't be bothered with an actual forcible reject button. EDIT : he seems to claim that the reboot trick does work, so apparently the cable is still at least partially functional in his case.