I installed knoppix 3.4 and periodically do an apt-get update & upgrade to keep the system up to date, and up until now, I haven't had problems. However, since the last upgrade, I now get a new message in the startup screen (which wasn't there before) stating:

Starting hotplug system

input failed

isapnp success

*can't synthasize pci hotplug events
pci failed

usb
usbcore already loaded
usbcore already loaded
repeats several times.. finally
usb success

And then if I try to plug in a usb storage device (pendrive or external hard disk) into the computer they are not recognised and do not work. dmesg tells me that the device times out and a new interrupt number is assigned...

I checked lsmod and found that usb-storage module was not loaded, even though usb-uhci and usbcore were loaded. And previously it was, and all usb devices worked fine.

Hence, if I do a modprobe usb-storage, the usb storage devices all work fine.

My question here is what has happened in the last upgrade and how can I repair it, having to type modprobe usb-storage everytime I reboot the computer is a drag, and more importantly I want to learn how the system works and understand the problem...

Thanks,

Tim