Hey Chris
Listen to the people saying that you should use it in your PC first, just put a spare ide disk if you cannot boot the SATA one and change the keyboard to ps2 (but i think AROS supports usb devices but not storage ones...yet)
I am pretty sure you are doing something wrong! Try booting Vmwaros and use the "Emergency Mode".
Be patient, for AROS @ your EFika which will be coming in the near future! (npanag) :-D :-D