Lion doesnt recongnize External Harddrive

I have a 2 week old macbook pro 13-inch and another laptop (same one) from christmas and neither of them recognize the 3 different external hardrives we use. the oldest one is formatter for windows xp, the toshiba is 500GB and formatted for my old macbook (2009 White model) and worked perfectly on it and on XP, and the other one is the macbook's old 500d GB drive (which i cased in and is formatted for snow leopard) all drives can be accessed from other computers execpt for the 2 macBook Pro's. Both run the latest Os Lion. I have tested them for anykind of error but i can only conlude the error is from the OS and not the drives themselves. I have also read on many forums and blog, and found that tons of people are having the same issue with Lion. Can anybody help me?

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under Mac OS X 10.7 or later, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

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