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My host is Debian wheezy 64-bit. I gave the guest 384MB for RAM and 20GB for hard drive, and installed from the host's DVD drive. I got as far as the first reboot, but now when the guest starts to complete the install, I get a BSoD with the message

While initializing device NTKERN Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer. System halted.

When single-stepping through startup, I only get as far as msmouse.vxd and the BSoD occurs after confirming that driver.

I'm not sure, but 20GB for a Windows ME hard drive maybe too much. It may fault if over 4 GB. I remember seeing something similar to that. Why don't you give it a shot with the default, proposed settings from the template and take it from there?

I did what you said but got the same result. (128MB RAM, 4GB HDD)

My original settings really should be ok, though. I used to run Win98SE on a Pentium 3 with a 6 gig hard drive and later added a 20 gig hard drive. FAT32's cluster sizes do become bigger when you exceed 4GB. I was going to install ME first and repartition later with a Linux live CD. I do recall FDISK having a barrier of 32(?) gigs, but that might be in just Win9x. I was in no danger of crossing that line anyway with just 20GB assigned (not to mention ME did copy files from the CD onto the .vdi).

If it's available, have you tried turning on VT-x?

Known problem, see https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12240

michaln's suggestion should sort out this particular issue, but you may come across other problems when installing Windows Me. It often freezes at various points in the process. (I have found that randomly moving and clicking the mouse can wake it up again - I have no idea why.) Various other BSoD's are also likely, and some are quite awkward to get rid of.

Windows Me does not run well in current versions of VirtualBox. (Some people would say simply that Windows Me does not run well!)

Can I suggest that, if possible, you use Windows 98SE instead. It works much better in VirtualBox that WinMe. The VT-x issue likely means that WinMe will run much slower than Win98. I have never come across anything that will run in Me but not 98, whereas WinMe will sometimes fail in situations where 98 works.

dlharper wrote: Windows Me does not run well in current versions of VirtualBox. (Some people would say simply that Windows Me does not run well!)
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I would be one of those people. I've only had one encounter with Windows ME and that was on someone's PC where it came pre-installed, and it was a pain.