If you are on feisty, you should not have a /media/.hal-mtab directly after booting, can you confirm? Then, please do the following:
- boot and log in without the stick attached - killall gnome-volume-manager - gnome-mount -vbd /dev/sda1 what does the last command print out? Please copy&paste it here -- usb key is not mounted automaticaly (feisty) https://launchpad.net/bugs/86292 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs