Trouble accessing files on external USB drive after 10.6.8 update

Upgraded to Mac 10.6.8 on my MacBook Pro (I'm not a techie, but the "About This Mac" thingy says 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 - I assume that means something to somebody). Since the upgrade, I've been having problems accessing data on an external HD connected via USB - there were no issues before the upgrade, but now it's impossible to even navigate to a particular file or subfolder half the time, as the process freezes 95% of the time (every so often I am able to get through, for no obvious reason) - usually I just get what looks like an empty folder and a little spinning thing in the bottom right-hand corner. Sometimes when I do get to a file - say it's a ZIP file - I'll try to unZIP it and the process will hang; if I try to drag it to the desktop and unZIP it there, I can't get it to copy to the desktop, I just get the "copying files" box and a bar that never shows any progress, it just hangs at zero bytes out of whatever it might be.
Also having intermittent issues with another external USB drive, which is the one I use for Time Machine - about one in every five backup attempts is successful, the rest of the time I get a message saying the backup couldn't be performed.
I have two external FireWire drives as well, and I'm having no trouble with either of those - so I'm assuming the problem is USB-related (and 10.6.8 related, since none of this was happening before the upgrade).
So - I'm wondering if anybody else is having the same issues, and f there's a solution that a non-techie like me could handle that won't make blood come out of my ears.
Cheers!

Thanks baltwo - the PRAM tip was helpful. For some reason I still have trouble accessing a few files, I'm putting that down to them being somehow corrupted. Eric, thanks, but I tried using Disk Utility and the communication problems I was having with the drive meant that the repair couldn't be performed. I may try again now that that side of things seems to be running a little more smoothly. Anyway, thank you both!

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Trouble accessing files on external USB drive after 10.6.8 update

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