Mounting USB drive that is not recognized

Using Arch Linux / XFCE, I frequently have problems with USB drives that are not properly mounted. Sometimes they automatically show up in Thunar and I can mount them with one click. However, at other times (it’s about fifty/fifty) the drive is just not recognized. I have had this problem with USB External Hard Drives, USB Memory Sticks, and cameras. If the external drive is not recognized, this is the situation:

Why is vim frozen?

I have two different machines (home and work) running Ubuntu 18.04. Last night vim froze at home. I was in insert mode and typing and went to save (esc :w) and nothing happened. The status bar still reads -- INSERT --, the cursor is still blinking where it was. I was stuck. I couldn’t find a way out. I couldn’t type (nothing happened when I type), I couldn’t move around (the up and down arrows did nothing). It was stuck in insert mode with the cursor blinking where it was.