Secure Empty Trash AND Hard drive stuck!!

Hi,

Am hoping I can get some help. went to delete some files (2 movies). Put them into trash then used secure empty trash to get rid of them as best as possible....now the status bar says there are 9 items being emptied and it hasn't moved for about 1 hour...Have read a few other posts elsewhere about this problem but they were from 2 or 3 years ago..have only recently switched to Mac...is this still an ongoing problem?

Secondly, went to eject external drive and it says it cannot be ejected as it is currently in use.....have turned off Time Machine just in case it was for some reason using it but still no luck...

Any Ideas?!?!

How large are the movie files you're securely deleting? And, why are you securely deleting them? The reason I ask is that secure delete like secure wipe takes a while to complete the process. That's also probably the reason the system will not allow ejecting the external hard drive. Be patient and wait until the process completes.

Regards.