Without seeing a dmesg or other diagnostic, it probably can\'t find all the pieces at first scan, i.e. it doesn\'t have the filesystem, or the CF/PCMCIA chain isn\'t loaded so it doesn\'t see USB yet (although the device files may be in /dev and the scsi chain loaded). Until the USB is enumerated, and usbstorage is up, you won\'t see anything.
dmesg should be revealing, but a lsmod ]/home/tmp/checkpoint1.log... at points might also show something.