[Balloon] Bare metal start

I'm just trying to bring up a system from bare metal with the menuconfig2 system.
(I've successfully done this with menuconfig in the past).

I'm deliberately not trying to modify the "out of the box" settings,
and I dislike bbl in a development environment, too many layers of stuff to go wrong.

I now need to program the system with a root filing system and kernel.
(Bootldr and initrd have programmed fine from OpenOCD, initrd kernel booted and stable).

I now have the following problem.

a) the default initrd kernel in NOR does not appear to have usb-storage or ohci-hcd modules so I can't use a USB stick to transfer FS and kernel. Maybe there is an alternative I'm not aware of?

b) The default initrd kernel doesn't have usb-ether (gether?) modules so I can' t plug in a USB to Ether adaptor and connect to a network to send the FS and kernel.

c) I've failed to make usbnet work so far, Balloon end seems to do the right thing but can't get the other end to work (Aspire running Debian) despite following setup instructions. (This does deserve another try though).

Thus I'm stuck...

Any help gratefully received.

Regards

David