The change here on my part is using a new installer script I sent to Paul Whalen, I installed the partitions to a sata hdd and the uboot to a 4Gb mSD card.

I then successfully boot with then and my system is running from the sata drive.

My script changes may not be the neatest, but they have no impact for the installer for devices without a sata and no change for any of the board specific uboot dd scripts.