My huge backup drive works fine with those USB ports just the external portable and the dvd drive are not being detected and the internal hd too. I just ripped some cds and put it on the drive so it works fine to test the usb ports and the internal dvd drive.
The external portable harddrive(fall but didn't hit the ground) and dvd drive(that I didn't drop) just doesn't get detected by my usb ports. The light turns on with the portable hd when I plug it in and makes normal noises of responding to being connected. I am just not able to get the hard drive to come up in nautilus like I am with my portable music player or my backup desktop hard drive via the same usb ports on my laptop.
