My first thought would be to try without the D/Port, as in connect the drive to one of the machines USB ports and see if that works...well, in this case it works. the drive is power-cycled twice during the boot process and udev takes care of it.
I have never used a D/Port, so I'm shooting in the dark as it were :) but I do remember someone once before had an issue with devices on a D/Port...well, the funny thing is that other device connected to the usb on d/port (wacom tablet) works fine... maybe it might be something related to the drive itself?
PS. maybe also try the debian-laptop list
thanks for a hint, i'll probably try it... best, -- Lubos _@_" http://www.lubos.vrbka.net