Found out what is going on: - in newer kernels, you need to load an additional modules (ums-*.ko) for many USB storage devices. In older kernels the device-specific functionality in these modules used to be part of usb-storage, now it is a separate module. So you need to manually modprobe that module as well. - The dialog of "disk controller modules" only proposes PCI or on-board devices (mostly for SCSI and SATA), but not USB... - ... however the creation of the device nodes (/dev/sda*, /dev/sdb*) is only performed if a disk controller module has been selected So, for now, the workaround is: - manually modprobe the appropose ums-*.ko module: modprobe ums-cypress.ko It may fail on first attempt (due to a weird kernel or busybox bug), in that case, just try again. - enter the "disk controller module", and pick your PATA or SATA controller (you need to pick something, or else no device nodes will be created, even though the actual module has already been loaded manually) - near the end, /dev/sdb should appear (/dev/sda being the built-in disk) For the next release, I'll change it such that now the ums* modules also show up in the list of disk controller modules, and that device nodes are created unconditionally. Regards, Alain