USB Devices not showing in Finder or Desktop

Thought I'd better come here BEFORE pulling my hair out!! Suddenly, my iPhone or usb jump drive do not show up in Finder.

-my external hd for backup shows up
-my internal drive shows up
-I enabled everything to show on my desktop - only internal hd shows
-I reset PRAM
-the iPhone shows up in hardware menu under USB, but not in disk utility under storage
-I don't know for sure, but I think this problem MAY have occurred after last software update
-I downloaded most recent software update from Apple - no diff
-running Mountain Lion 10.8.4

These are the things that drive me crazy. I am a 53 year old, mother of 9....so no techy by any stretch but can follow simple (key word being "simple") instructions so would appreciate any insight you could give me. I LOVE my Mac and don't want to stay mad at it!! It is a MacBook Pro that I bought new in December 2012.

I haven'y figured out the jump drive issue yet. The last time the happened to me the drive had simply failed. Not saying that has happened here just one of the options. Do you have another computer (Mac or PC) that you could plug that drive into long enough to see if it shows there.

Normally the iPhone does not show in the Finder as a disk drive. Accessing the content on the phone is usually done through iTunes. There are some utilities that allow it yo show in Finder but many users never need that. What are you trying to do that needs the iPhone to show in the Finder.

The thing is that my iPhone always showed up before and so did the jump drive. Something has changed and even if I never wanted to use either of these things again, just that fact alone will bug me. To me, something is wrong.

The jump drive should be showing up if you have the Finder set to show these items. That why I was wondering if you had access to another computer to plug it into for just a minute to see if it appears there. I have both a jump drive and iPhone plugged in at the moment and the drive shows while the iPhone does not.

Even if it is a Windows machine the drive should appear as long as it has not been reformatted specifically to work with Macs. I'll try and do a bit of investigating and see if I can puzzle out an answer. Are these things plugged directly into the Mac USB port or are they plugged into a USB hub first?

Not sure what's changed but now the USB jump drive is showing up but the iphone is not. No biggie....I can live with itunes and iPhoto as my access points. Computers!!!!