Someone just mailed me off-list stating that discover or hotplug may be the culprit here, perhaps identifying something improperly or something that doesn't like to be probed. This rung a bell with me - I think I may have installed something related to my cd burner, and the config screen asked if I'd like to have discover manage such things. I'm going to try disabling this tonight, if anyone has a chance to do this earlier, let me know. thanks, -B