I have a Maxtor external that is smart (spins down and sleeps on it's
own). access is slowed down by this fact. Try in a terminal running the
command "mount". As for your other USB devices it is a matter of the OS
seeing them. Right mouse click over them and click safely remove or
unmount. The OS seems to not have a flag that tells it that it has been
connected to a program. If any question it assumes there may be
information not yet written to the device so wants you to unmount it.