getting usb mass storage to finish before running init?

["Nick Bartos" <spam99@2thebatcave.com>]

Is there any way to get the kernel to finish initializing usb mass storage
devices before running init?

I have a problem where I am trying to boot off usb, but the storage device
is not detected when I am trying to do fsck and mount the flash device
from my init scripts.

I can put a sleep in there but that is sloppy, and can not really be
relied apon (since technically there is no way I can know how long the
detection phase will take), and also I may be waisting time (which I don't
want to, I want a fast booting router).

I cannot poll to wait for the device to exist in /proc/partitions or in
/dev, since some routers will boot off ide and may not even have usb
devices.

I would like to hack the kernel to wait to run init until after the usb
stuff is done (although I don't really know where to start, I don't know
where the usb or init stuff is ran from), or find some clean & reliable
way of detecting when it is done (even if it doesn't need to load usb).

I was sort of hoping there was some little-known kernel option that may
help me...

Ideas?