If anyone is still interested, I've found acceptable workaround. I've submitted feedback report and decided to disable subfs, following recommended link: http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/05/hmeyer_91_revert_from_subfs.html In /etc/sysconfig/hotplug, I changed HOTPLUG_DO_MOUNT=yes HOTPLUG_MOUNT_TYPE="subfs" to HOTPLUG_DO_MOUNT=no HOTPLUG_MOUNT_TYPE="fstab" and added new entries to /etc/fstab: /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 auto noauto,user,sync 0 0 /dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 auto noauto,user,sync 0 0 /dev/sdc1 /media/sdc1 auto noauto,user,sync 0 0 /dev/sdd1 /media/sdd1 auto noauto,user,sync 0 0 /dev/sde1 /media/sde1 auto noauto,user,sync 0 0 /dev/sdf1 /media/sdf1 auto noauto,user,sync 0 0 Restarting hotplug: # rchotplug restart disabling Hotplug done enabling Hotplug done Devices are not automatically mounted now, but it's easy to use application like kdf (KDiskFree) to do it. System does not hang - everything works without problems so far (although system is still loaded by hwscan and kdeinit when device is connected and disconnected). Regards, Jarek