Trash emptying slowly

Hey, so I had my external hardrive connected to my computer and was trying to delete old back ups so that I could make a new one. In the process, I now somehow have 55,000 + items emptying from the trash, and it is TAKING FOREVER. Is there anything I can do? I have already unplugged the external hardrive. And there is not enough room to put the backups back on the drive, so I am just confused. Will the trash ever empty or is it just going to be infinitely stuck like this? Thanks in advance for any advice! I've looked through a couple old threads about this, but don't totally understand if there is a solution.

Hi I,
I think you're going to have to wait this one out, and it's going to take a long while, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
And I don't know what it's going to do now that you unplugged (hopefully dismounted it at least) the ext HD. It sounds like you caught it between filling up the trash (can take a long time with large or many files) and emptying it. Depending on what OS you're on, you should get a progress bar at some point. If you've waited as long as you can wait and still no progress, then you might want to force shut down your MBP by holding the power button down for 5-10 seconds; aside from shutting down your MBP, I don't know what effect this may have on the trash or the ext HD.

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The problem is the illegal characters in the file name. Try booting from your install disk, then go to the menu and select Disk Utility and run the First Aid-Repair Disk function. Restart, and you should be able to empty the Trash.
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Why won't my trash empty or show that it is empty?

HI!
I deleted a lot of files from my external drive then Trash deleted some of them but not all. I'm trying to Empty Securely Trash but it says: "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items."
I tried to press the option key and then Empty Securely Trash but it didn't work.
When I log into my administration account and insert the external drive then it shows that Trash is empty but when I use my usual users account and insert the external drive then it shows that there are items in the trash but it won't let me Empty the Trash.
Otherwise both my admistration account trash and usual users account trash are both empty, Its only when I use my usual users account and insert external drive then it shows items in the Trash and won't let me Empty it.
So now I don't know if there are actually items in the Trash that I can't delete or the Trash is actually empty but for some reason it show that it is not and won't let me Empty it.
Tried restarting computer multiple times but still nothing.
Help!

Unfortunately don't have any other macs around here.
When I did Disk Utility then only Verify Disk and Repair Disk buttons are active. Verify Disk Permissions and Repair Disk Permissions buttons are not active at all. Don't know why is that. I assumed that they werent supposed to be active with external harddrives as my other external harddrive which seems to be ok, when I mount it, then last 2 buttons I metioned also are not active. But if you say to use Repair Disk Permissions then something must be wrong with both of my external harddrives?
Anyway the external drive which Im concerned with right now (the trash won't empty), when I did Verify Disk and Repair Disk then got this:
Verifying volume “MY PASSPORT”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
** Phase 3 - Checking for Orphan Clusters
10158 files, 132201376 KiB free (4131293 clusters)
Verify and Repair volume “MY PASSPORT”
Error: Could not unmount disk
Verifying volume “MY PASSPORT”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
** Phase 3 - Checking for Orphan Clusters
10156 files, 132201472 KiB free (4131296 clusters)
Verify and Repair volume “MY PASSPORT”
Error: Could not unmount disk

Trash emptying slowly

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