MacBook Pro refuses to eject external disk - How do I make this stop?

So I have an issue that's been bugging me for a couple weeks, now (from even before I upgraded to Mountain Lion), that I, really, need a solution to. I have a 1TB external drive divided into 3 partitions. I eject it whenever I wish to remove it from my computer, but, lately, there is 1 partition that, constantly, refuses to be ejected. I get the usual warning in this instance:
The disk [volume name] wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it.
I click "Try Again" and it doesn't work. It works with "Force Eject", but I don't want to cause any unnecessary damage to the contents of the drive. The next time it happened, I ran the following in Terminal:
sudo lsof -xf +d "/Volumes/[volume name]"
This told me that the "mds" process was accessing the disk, which means Spotlight was using it. I clicked the "Spotlight" icon in the menu bar and Spotlight didn't appear to be doing anything. I can't quit the "mds" process in Activity Monitor, because the process just starts again. The only thing that worked was logging out, then, logging back in, then, I could, immediately eject the volume.
Of course, the next time I plugged the disk in, the same thing happened.
How do I stop this from happening? How can I stop Spotlight from, constantly, holding this disk captive? I shouldn't have to log out to eject a disk.
Please advise.

Cerebro,
I am in the same boat but I think you could help me and many others by telling us what what in the folders that were keeping your G-Raid or HARD DRIVE from UNMOUNTING?
I can force quit.......and even force quit to get the DiskUtility to treat that like a unmount.....
but in my case I may have installed software from AUTODESK that uses WIRETAPPING on the EXTERNAL DRIVE because that is the AUTHORIZATION method and also the CONTENT method they use to allow me to use their software for FREE as a STUDENT or EDU.
But I tried to kill these processes in the Activity Monitor and it just comes back or creates new numbers..
so I am not sure if that is the culprit...
I had read other culprits....like other 3rd party BACKUP SOFTWARE (not Time MACHINE) that was hanging the computer......
I am wondering why you had APPLE CARE help you and they couldn't even find the solution....
so without you sharing with me even in a private email as you didn't share what the FOLDER was for software.
I would be much appreciated as if this is the similar case then I can contact them and just ask them the workaround if it is not an APPLE thing......
Most POWER USERS that understand MOUNTAIN LION or SNOW LEOPARD and UNIX for that matter know the TERMINAL like a second language...
I wish I did but I don't yet.....
I really need to take a class or just read these ADMINISTRATION BOOKS for APPLE CERTIFICATION to understand such things.....
Please let me know anyone else reading this if you have some good ideas? or IRC CHAT or other FORUMS that strictly deal and discuss APPLE OSX and UNIX PROGRAMMING as well as NETWORKING without the FILE SYSTEM.....most of this is ADMINISTRATION LEVEL or root level knowledge, and should be offered as a MANUAL when you buy the COMPUTER........or at least a FREE PDF instead of having to pay the 50 or 60 dollars for the current flavor of OSX.....
I paid a 3 dollars for SNOW LEOPARD was happy updating school MAC LABS in LAUSD with that knowledge...but now I am MOUNTAIN LION 10.8 so I am wondering is it really worth the upgrade BOOK is that SYSTEM that much DIFFERENT than SNOW LEOPARD? can anyone tell me?
thanks so much
singleton
PS- - my problem is the same I have a G-RAID that will not EJECT unless I FORCE QUIT the DRIVE.....
I can't figure out what is causing it to hang......how should I go about finding out exactly what it is?
thanks

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