My iMac won't read my flash drive

My iMac 27-inch, mid 2011, (OS X version 10.7.4) won't read my flash drives. I don't believe it is a formatting issue of the USB flash drive because the flash drives are easily read on my MacBook Air, 11-inch, late 2010 (OS X version 10.7.4). The drive occasionally will appear on the iMac, but not always, and I can't seem to figure out when it does and when it doesn't. When I use an external hard drive, it appears in the finder.  Just, not the flash drives.  So, I continually have to load from the flash drive to the Air and then connect to the iMac. It's kind of ridiculous. Does anyone have an idea why I can't read the flash drive on the iMac?

Could be a USB port glitch/problem - try these two troubleshooting methods:
PRAM reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
post back if it still doesn't work.

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