I have been having similar problem with an IcyBox USB2.0 fitted with
4Gb 2.5" HDD. It used to work fine  few iterations ago, I don't
remeber when it stopped showing the sd* coming up.

If it is of any help, it works only when the system was booted with
the disk attached. Dismounting, disconnecting, reconnecting again - no
sd* ...

Same with 3.99.8 from three days ago.=20

30 Aug 2005 20:12:07 -0400, Nathan J. Williams <nathanw@wasabisystems.com>:
> adam@pulstar.albedo.art.pl writes:
>=20
> > I know it has been mentioned before, but iPod Mini still does not work
> > correctly with NetBSD (-current, in my case, on i386 with uhci at least=
).
> > In short, the scsibus is detected, but sd* is not attached.
>=20
> I mean to debug this one of these days (starting from Quentin's
> analysis), but I can unhappily report that a 20G iPod photo has the
> same problem.
>=20
>         - Nathan
>=20
>