High load average and iowait % after plugging in USB floppy

[Robert C Paulsen Jr]

Plugging in a USB floppy drive works (it can be mounted and read), but
it eventually causes the system load average to raise and the iowait
state to go to a high percentage (99-100%). It also causes the system to
become noticeably sluggish and prevents sendmail from working. (Sendmail
will refuse connections if the system is "too busy", assuming that the
system will shortly get through the busy stage.)

Here is a section from /var/log/maillog (Sorry about the line-wrap. I
haven't figured how to turn it off in this mail client)...

Apr  9 16:01:14 avalon sendmail[8571]: rejecting connections on daemon
MTA: load average: 12
Apr  9 16:01:59 avalon last message repeated 3 times

Here is /var/log/messages just before the above:

Apr  9 15:54:52 avalon kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.7-1, assigned
address 26
Apr  9 15:54:52 avalon kernel: hub.c: USB hub found
Apr  9 15:54:52 avalon kernel: hub.c: 4 ports detected
Apr  9 15:54:56 avalon /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usbcore for USB
product 409/58/100
Apr  9 15:54:56 avalon /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usbcore for USB
product 409/58/100
Apr  9 15:54:56 avalon kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.7-1.3,
assigned address 27
Apr  9 15:54:59 avalon /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB
product 57b/0/501

Top showed a consistently high "iowait" status at the time and ps showed
the following processes multiple times. They cannot be killed (even with
kill -9):

/usr/bin/scsi-unique_id /dev/sdb
/usr/sbin/updfstab
/usr/bin/autorun -l --interval=1000 --cdplayer=/usr/bin/kscd

Note that /dev/sdb is the device assigned to the USB floppy when it is
plugged in.

The /etc/hotplug/usb.agent and /sbin/devlabel also show multiple times
but they can be killed.

So far the only recovery action I have found is a re-boot!

I tried eliminating autorun from the KDE autostart folder. I at first
thought that solved the problem but after leaving the USB floppy device
plugged in overnight the iowait problem was there in the AM, including
all the above un-killable processes. I tried using both USB1 and USB2
ports.