Comment 44 for bug 296710

Without rebooting I disconnected the external USB device, unloaded the USB modules then loaded ehci_hcd first:

sudo modprobe -r uhci_hcd
sudo modprobe -r ohci_hcd

sudo modprobe ehci_hcd
sudo modprobe uhci_hcd
sudo modprobe ohci_hcd

readlink /sys/block/sdb
../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/host8/target8:0:0/8:0:0:0/block/sdb

Now rinse and repeat with a different load order:

sudo modprobe -r ohci_hcd
sudo modprobe -r uhci_hcd
sudo modprobe -r ehci_hcd
sudo modprobe uhci_hcd
sudo modprobe ohci_hcd
sudo modprobe ehci_hcd
readlink /sys/block/sdb
../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb5/5-3/5-3:1.0/host12/target12:0:0/12:0:0:0/block/sdb