I posted this question on the ubuntu forums but nobody responded, so I said "surely the linux masters over at linux questions have the answer!" So here's my post.

Hey guys, I just got a new laptop and I've got an e-sata expresscard for my external hard drive which all works great! The only thing is that if I don't have it plugged in and turned on at boot up it doesn't work. So I figured there had to be a way to make my computer refresh it's expresscard drivers or something so that I don't have to reboot to get it to work. Does anyone know how I might be able to do this? That would be super helpful and life-changing.

So pretty much I just need to know how to refresh my expresscard slot without rebooting my whole system.

Thanks
Nate

I did a bit of searching and it seems that the e-sata refresh requires use of calls to the acpi. That is info based on a Microsoft site. Might be a start for you. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system...tPlugPCIe.mspx

Brian