Hi,
Perhaps I wasn't clear. My problem isn't with a live CD, but with the installed system.
I have a laptop that I picked up for free, which is actually quite nice, but lacks SATA, because the previous owner managed to break the connector off. But it works quite nicely for me, running off an old SSD that has a USB connector. Not the best set-up for disk I/O, but good enough, since it's the screen that I want to use.
D-U to the 3.8 kernel broke this, because initramfs-tools doesn't include ehci-pci in initrd.img. And there are various other scenarios where USB2 is required for booting, although they aren't the usual case.
I notice that Debian experimental has picked up a 3.8 kernel, so perhaps a fix will be forthcoming soon. But I'm not sure that I'd want to hold my breath, since even Debian Sid doesn't update the kernel very often.
On the other hand, you siduction guys do provide your most excellent kernels tracking the latest releases. So this is an issue for people running siduction.
I don't know whether you want to provide your own fix (i.e. release your own version of initramfs-tools), or just wait for an upstream fix. But I thought I should provide a heads-up on the forum, so people with oddball machines like me know what to do to work around the problem.