External drive will NEVER eject properly

I am having a problem with my external hard drive.

I have 2 LaCie 1TB external hard drives. One I use for Time Machine one for extra files (lots of them).

My problem lies with the one that is just for extra files. Every time I try to eject the disk, it will not eject and just says that there's some program using it and that I can either wait or force eject the disk.

I do not want to just unplug the drive for fear of erasing everything (I learned that the hard way years ago after only having my Mac for a day). But I am also sick of having to shut off my computer each time I need to unplug the drive. I have shut down ALL other programs and I am still told that there's something using the disk.

Can someone please tell me what's wrong, point me in the direction to fix this, or just anything really.

I run 10.6.6 (whatever the newest one is, I update right away). I use crashplan to back up my files (though with this program closed, the problem is still there). I have also recently installed Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac.

Thanks

In my experience the application that is using the drive is the Finder. For some reason the Finder isn't releasing a file on the HD.
I force quit the Finder when this happens and I can usually eject the HD after that.

Another thing that could be happening is that Spotlight is indexing the drive and thus keeping the HD from ejecting.
Spotlight Indexing can be turned off for the external HD by putting the external HD on the privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane.

Thank you for your reply, but...

I relaunched finder but nothing changed. When I went to stop my computer from indexing the hard drive I got an error message that said:

"The item couldn't be added or removed because of an unknown error"

Any other thoughts anyone?

My problem lies with the one that is just for extra files. Every time I try to eject the disk, it will not eject and just says that there's some program using it and that I can either wait or force eject the disk.

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If you've tried what McYukon suggested and still have to turn off the machine in order to eject the drive, then it's likely the drive itself has problems. It's either not spinning down properly or its firmware may be corrupted. The Spotlight error may be a clue.

If the drive is still under warranty, I would give LaCie a call and have them RMA it. Make sure you get everything you need off that drive or back it up to another drive as soon as you can.