Hello
When I try to install Windows on the virtual machine, I get to the part where I try to format the virtual partition, and my computer suddenly reboots. without giving any error massages. I'm very new to Linux and I'm not sure what I should do.

Make sure the chipset emulation (found on the "Motherboard" tab in the "System" settings category) is set to PIIX3. On the "Storage" tab, attach the virtual disk to the virtual IDE controller.

Also, don't assign too much memory to the virtual machine. The XP installer has some issues with memory that can cause it to crash if the system has significantly more than 2 Gb RAM. It's possible to add more memory once the OS is installed.

Edit: Does the VM reboot, or does your entire system reboot? The latter is most unusual and could be a kernel or hardware issue. Which distribution and kernel version are you running.

VirtualBox needs more hardware.You can tell your computer configuration?

All the configurations are like you said. and yes the entire system reboots and not just the virtual machine. I am running Kubuntu 13.10 with the kernel 3.11.0-18-generic

If the host computer is what is rebooting then you are running out of resources I'd think. How much ram does the host computer have? How much ram did you assign to the client?

XP should load on 128Meg as I recall.

The host may or may not be able to report why is crashes. See /var logs maybe.

Be sure you have swap file or swap partition.

It could be some issue with your vm application but it is host related and not client issue. It is supposed to be jailed from host.

I assigned 128 MG as VirtualBox suggested. I'm not sure what my Ram size is but I know its a lot more than 128 since this computer is brand new.
How can I get an output of this error?

XP wont do much with 128MB, especially with SP2/3. It will load and instantly swap out and jerk around. It needs 256 RAM minimum, but better with 512 MB.

BTW that restart issue is 99% not related to the occupied memory. If the memory is full the computer will start using the swap partition, slow to a crawl with constant disk activity. If doesnt manage to free up resources and swap is full, the OOM (out of memory) killer will start working, killing the most offending process, which is most likely the virtual machine since that uses the most RAM.

The issue is why does the host reboot? What could cause it, I'd still think ram issue. Any assigned ram issue with client should NEVER cause host to crash.

"The minimum hardware requirements for Windows XP Home Edition are:

Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
"


Tell me how much ram does the host have?

Try a different VM.
Use Memtest for a few days.
Set bios to failsafe or default.

To the OP:
-Check if virtualization (AMD-Vi or Intel Vt-d) is actually enabled in the BIOS (Intels tend to have it default off mostly) and enable it if its not. If its enabled, let it like that and disable virtualization from the VM and see if it makes a difference.
-Make sure your HDD is ok. Gsmartcontrol is an application that can communicate with the hdd and see if it has errors.
-Run a memtest, as suggested before. Obvious memory errors get caught real fast, you just need to do 1 full pass.

Have you actually tried running XP SP3 (the most recent version) with 128 MB of RAM and actually doing something on it? I saw it and it aint pretty (800 MHz celerons with 256 MB RAM). For pretty much anyhting besides idling you need at least 256 RAM and thats not enough as it will swap out real fast, even if you use only IE6, not to speak IE7/8. And pretty much anything non-Microsoft has additional libraries that will eat memory even faster.

Could try a different OS too for tests. Grab almost any OS image and run it.

Wonder if a temp or psu power issue is causing it? A full OS crash without any /var logs is a major issue.