[gentoo-user] [OT] USB hard drive puzzle

[walt]

I have an add-on usb3 adapter (based on ASMedia ASM1042 usb chip, using xhci
kernel driver), which I dearly love except for one very annoying 'feature' ;)

When I power up the outboard hard-disk docking station (plugged into the usb3
adapter) the computer never sees the docking station or its hard disk until
I reboot the computer.  Something in the BIOS apparently resets some hardware
thingy, and then it all works extremely well thereafter.

Having to reboot the computer to use a usb docking station kinda defeats the
whole point of usb. (Or am I just being grumpy? :)

Can anyone think of some trick I could use in lieu of rebooting to get the
adapter/disk combination properly initialized?

Any hints would be very much appreciated.