External hard drives permanently accessed

I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but I'll give it a go.
I have just connected to external drives (Buffalo 500 GB USB2). They have both mounted OK (albeit after some initial partitioning weirdness) but they keep exhibiting odd behaviour. After sitting there apparently content for a while, the access lamp on both drives lights up and won't go off. I think I noticed that this happened the first time when I was trying to save an attachment from mail, when presumably finder is trying to locate all storage location possibilites for my save. And after that initial access they appear permanently to be accessed. I have copied data (lots) to both drives today, is it at all possible that they are being indexed by the OS? If so any idea what process does that so I can check for it? Another thing I have noticed is that all saves of new documents now seems impossible, (the application concerned stop responding), seemingly related to these external disks, even though I am not actually trying to save to either of those disks. If anyone can help me, other than by suggesting I take the two disks back where I bought them, it would be greatly appreciated. Or if you can point me at the correct forum for this type of problem.

Sean hi,
I'm just wondering whether this isn't some USB 2 specific problem.
I installed a StarTech.com 2 port USB 2.0 PCI Card so I could run the Freecom 400.
Could this be it?
I noted earlier that one of the issues that OS 10.4.10 was supposed to resolve had something to do with external USB devices viz
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10410updatev11intel.html
<quote>
What’s New in this Version
The 10.4.10 Update is recommended for PowerPC and Intel-based Mac computers currently running Mac OS X Tiger. This update includes general operating system fixes, as well as specific fixes or compatibility updates for the following applications and technologies:
- RAW camera support
- Mounting and unmounting external USB devices
- Support for 3rd party software applications
- Security updates
</quote>
And my problem has now changed from beng able to open files (which I now can) to the drive falling asleep whenever it feels like it and hanging the system.
Oh yes, and I cannot unmount the drive once its come up.

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    Existing discussion thread link: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1715002?start=0&tstart=0
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