Hi Randall,
Jarek,
On the previous main board I used (from MSI), the BIOS had something called "Legacy USB support" or "Legacy USB emulation" (I cannot recall the exact terminology or check it anymore--the word "legacy" was definitely part of it). When enabled it caused SuSE Linux (then 9.0) to lock up during boot as soon as it performed its USB bus scan, unless there were no devices connected. If no devices were connected and powered during booting, the lock-up would occur as soon as the first device was connected or powered on.
This "legacy" mode didn't affect Windows, but disabling it allowed Linux to work fine and it then had no trouble accessing my USB devices, which include a flash RAM disk emulator, an HP printer and an MP3 player.
I don't know if this is applicable to your situation, but it might be worthwhile to check out any BIOS settings related to USB devices.
thanks a lot for your help. Yes, I have "USB Legacy Support" and it was set to "Default", whatever it means. I tried both "Enabled" and "Disabled" but nothing really changed (it seems to be worse with "Enabled", however). As I said, problem seems to be 9.2-specific - in 9.0 everything works well, system doesn't hang and scanning does not lock it up. Thanks, Jarek