etch: cannot mount usb hd

[Jörg Becker <news@elke-joerg.de>]

Hello everyone,

I cannot mount an usb hd when it was connected while switching on my machine. 
The message is the famous "already mounted or busy". I found many things in 
google, but nothing matches my problem.

symptoms:
- device is detected on startup (currently /dev/sdc with 3 partitions sdc1-3)
- mount -> usb hd not in list, so not mounted yet
- lsofs  -> empty for both the device (/dev/sdc2) and the mount point
- tried different mount points (no shell / file manager blocks the mount point
- sudo mount -a / open disk in konqueror-> "already mounted or busy"

After restarting the usb hd I can mount its partitions without any problems. 
This is true for both mounting via fstab entry (my backup partition should be 
auto mounted on startup without any desktop support) and the user partition 
which is auto mounted by kde.


Tanks for any help

Jörg