Laptop does not boot when USB pcmcia card is inserted

[LCID Fire]

Binary package hint: upstart

I have a usb pcmcia card. When it is in a pcmcia slot the computer hangs on 20% in boot screen. It boots fine when the card is missing. When I insert the card later it doesn't seem to recognize it at all (no message in syslog).

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

It's a HP Omnibook XE3

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

It is NOT dependent on the laptop. I inserted the card into my Dell Latitude and it's the same there. Difference is on the other Feisty is running - on mine - Gutsy. It shows the "Loading hardware drivers..." message and then stops.

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

When I insert the card after booting the computer freezes. It works again after I remove the card. A normal user will assume that the computer crashed.

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

I added another usb card and this one works (solely when inserted before booting - but that's ok). The not working is a kind of noname one - I think I read somewhere about a via chip - but I don't have more details...

[Erik Andrén (erik-andren)]

Have you verified that the pcmcia card actually works and isn't plain broken?
I would test it in a windows machine and see what happens.

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

Finally got around to test on a vista machine and it even crashes Vista.

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

BTW: Vista, too loads the hardware drivers and then chokes - so seems like both drivers don't handle the failure of the card correctly.