Hoary: Kernel 2.6.10 & 2.6.11 / USB-harrdisk failure

[S. Donig]

Hi List!

Since I have installed hoary several months ago I've run in problems
using my external hard disk. At the moment I run hoary installed from
scratch.

Hardware: 
IBM R50p laptop and a 
Maxtor OneTouch external hard disk (USB 2.0 or IEEE 1394)

Problem: 
When plugging in the hard disk hotplug seems to work fine (no suspicious
log). Any transfer of a larger file (20MB<) immediately "freezes" the
transfer. While no data is copied the file-transfer dialogue will remain
open and count the remaining time endless.    

There's no way to stop that process until you kill it explicitly (e.g.
x-kill). GNOME will respawn but the hard disk is not detected once more.
Also shutdown will be unclean. 

Most strange: _Nothing_ appears in the logs.   

It seems that I'm not the alone with this problem, cf. for instance:
http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2005-April/031282.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&forumid=2&threadid=315645

Done until now:
- switched kernel to Warty's 2.6.8 default. Transfer works fine, but
some modules (like ibm_acpi and ppp_mppe) are missing and Cisco's
vpn_client won't compile

- hence I compiled several times a 2.6.10 and a 2.6.11 kernel from hoary
sources, excluding successively all modules marked experimental. All
failed, showing the same behaviour as the default 2.6.10 kernel :(,
sigh!

- switched the hard disk from USB 2 to IEEE 1394 no problems with
default 2.6.10 or 11, but pcmcia firewire-card needed, hence
impracticable 


Any hint on how to make my hard disk work with a kernel-version larger
2.6.9. highly appreciated. (I have future in mind. I certainly could
live with a workaround for now, but if something is fundamentally wrong
with the kernel in respect to my disk I'd like to file a bug, at least.)
Thanks a lot in advance

Simon