I can't delete things off my external hard drive

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009) (Verified)
  MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5
  1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2-core
I bought a Seagate 2TB external hard drive. i can get stuff on it no problem but I can't delete certain things from my trash. When I try to delete some, not all, things off it a box appears that says:
"the operation can't be completed because ..... is in use."
It's not, I have all the applications closed. I have tried the normal delete, the secure delete, I have tried turning the laptop off and then trying to delete again when its on and it's not working, I have tried putting the file back on the Hard drive and then moving it to the trash again (this has worked for me before with other drives) and deleting, that is also not working.

This is concerned in particular with backups.. but what is relevant is the command to empty the trash.
http://pondini.org/TM/E6.html
Doing stuff from terminal as you know .. be very careful.
I would do a permissions fix beforehand. Just open the disk the disk utility and run the repair.
Or again you can do it from terminal.
http://osxdaily.com/2010/08/10/repair-disk-permissions-from-the-command-line/
Depending on what nasty changes there are in Yosemite.

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