Comment 1 for bug 425927

after further diagnostics,

dmesg says:

[ 45.629274] usb 2-6: USB disconnect, address 2
[ 86.880026] usb 2-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[ 87.014052] usb 2-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 87.056261] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[ 87.056467] scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 87.056589] usb-storage: device found at 3
[ 87.056594] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 87.056596] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[ 87.056601] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[ 92.056254] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 92.152462] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access Hitachi HTS542525K9SA00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
[ 92.154939] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors: (250 GB/232 GiB)
[ 92.155809] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 92.155813] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 34 00 00 00
[ 92.155816] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 92.156433] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors: (250 GB/232 GiB)
[ 92.160846] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 92.160851] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 34 00 00 00
[ 92.160855] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 92.160864] sdb: sdb1
[ 92.178485] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[ 92.178571] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

And a diff on the ps list before and after calling nautilus (which makes the drive available):

> 1 4063 4063 4063 ? -1 Ss 0 0:00 /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/PHILLIPS_250GB -o rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,locale=en_US.UTF-8
> 1 4067 3753 3753 ? -1 Sl 1000 0:01 nautilus --no-desktop /media/PHILLIPS_250GB
> 1 4070 3914 3914 ? -1 S 1000 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-trash --spawner :1.4 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/0
> 1 4078 3914 3914 ? -1 S 1000 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-burn --spawner :1.4 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/1

Attached output of lsusb/ps just after bootup.