how to kill stubborn processes

I've used:

Code:kill -9 1234But that never seem to work. This usually revolves around copy operations, but not always.

I have search the web about this issue numerous times in the past, and I have never found an adequate solution. The only one being to simply reboot the computer.

Is there a better way? How would I see what operations are involved in the process and then kill -9 them?