I confirm this problem on Debian Lenny too. For some reason gnome-volume-manager does not start, or exits immediately, at first login after reboot. So automounting does not work. If you logout from desktop and then re-login then gnome-volume-manager starts and automounting works just fine.
-- System Information: Debian Release: lenny/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.25-2-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fi_FI.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages gnome-volume-manager depends on: ii gconf2 2.22.0-1 GNOME configuration database syste ii gnome-mount 0.7-2 wrapper for (un)mounting and eject ii hal 0.5.11-2 Hardware Abstraction Layer ii libart-2.0-2 2.3.20-2 Library of functions for 2D graphi ii libatk1.0-0 1.22.0-1 The ATK accessibility toolkit ii libbonobo2-0 2.22.0-1 Bonobo CORBA interfaces library ii libbonoboui2-0 2.22.0-1 The Bonobo UI library ii libc6 2.7-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libcairo2 1.6.4-6 The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra ii libdbus-1-3 1.2.1-3 simple interprocess messaging syst ii libdbus-glib-1-2 0.76-1 simple interprocess messaging syst ii libgconf2-4 2.22.0-1 GNOME configuration database syste ii libglade2-0 1:2.6.2-1 library to load .glade files at ru ii libglib2.0-0 2.16.4-2 The GLib library of C routines ii libgnome2-0 2.20.1.1-1 The GNOME 2 library - runtime file ii libgnomecanvas2-0 2.20.1.1-1 A powerful object-oriented display ii libgnomeui-0 2.20.1.1-1 The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf ii libgnomevfs2-0 1:2.22.0-4 GNOME Virtual File System (runtime ii libgtk2.0-0 2.12.11-3 The GTK+ graphical user interface ii libhal1 0.5.11-2 Hardware Abstraction Layer - share ii libice6 2:1.0.4-1 X11 Inter-Client Exchange library ii libnotify1 [libnotify1-gtk 0.4.4-3 sends desktop notifications to a n ii liborbit2 1:2.14.13-0.1 libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB ii libpango1.0-0 1.20.5-1 Layout and rendering of internatio ii libpopt0 1.14-4 lib for parsing cmdline parameters ii libsm6 2:1.0.3-2 X11 Session Management library ii libx11-6 2:1.1.4-2 X11 client-side library ii libxml2 2.6.32.dfsg-2 GNOME XML library Versions of packages gnome-volume-manager recommends: pn gthumb <none> (no description available) ii nautilus-cd-burner 2.20.0-1 CD Burning front-end for Nautilus ii sound-juicer 2.22.0-1 GNOME 2 CD Ripper ii totem 2.22.2-3 A simple media player for the GNOM Versions of packages gnome-volume-manager suggests: ii rhythmbox 0.11.6-1 music player and organizer for GNO ii serpentine 0.9-5 An application for creating audio pn wine <none> (no description available) ii xsane 0.995-4 featureful graphical frontend for -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]