Comment 38 for bug 153768

Here is a hal rule I've put in my preferences.fdi which works for me in my case where I have an external esata drive plugged into a esata cardbus adapter in my laptop. I think it should work for anyone in a similar situation.

Note that you have to either put it before, or comment out the other entry in the preferences.fdi that prevents automounting internal drives. I'll attach the full /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi.

The rule:
  <!-- Fix properties for external esata drives connected via cardbus -->
  <match key="block.device" exists="true">
    <match key="block.is_volume" bool="false">
      <match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
        <match <email address hidden>:@info.parent:@info.parent:@info.parent:info.linux.driver" string="pcieport-driver">
          <merge key="storage.removable" type="bool">true</merge>
          <merge key="storage.hotpluggable" type="bool">true</merge>
        </match>
      </match>
    </match>
  </match>