Welcome, dear friend.

Jeff. I am pretty sure that DOSBox CAN'T do that becacuse is totally unintrusive to the system. The problem may lie somewhere else or it could be a nasty coincidence.

You didn't post any info about your hardware/software specs. so we cannot help you any further. Probably a hardware failure I say, nothing to do with DOSBox.

I'm sorry for the offensive sound but this would be a really rare accident...
My WinXPhome is running smooth for two years. I run two Antivirus programs (one with shield), I do regular scans and online scans, I run a damn firewall and I doublecheck everything I download.
I haven't been online for three days when my machine crashed and in the time befor it worked fine (just used Word and Acrobat reader). Then I start dosBOX and in the same moment the system brakes down! NO other program was running.... strange, he?

The original poster is talking nonsence and what is worse, he cannot behave... We should delete such posts...

For the original poster:
DOSBOX cannot do such thing... The only thing how DOSBOX can have impact on the system stability is the processor usage. DOSBOX uses processor intensively, so if you have bad cooling it can lead to problems...
There is nothing else DOSBOX could do...
We would be flooded with complains if DOSBOX did anything wrong... You are not the only one who uses it. Try to use brain and learn manners before posting the next time.

Mirek

As I said, I'm sorry for the tone of my first post.
You are right, I don't know anything about how those machines work, I just use them.
I simply have no other explanation. There was nothing else running, I was not connected to the internet and the machine did run well for the last some days.
All you could tell me is, that the machine was going to brake down that speciall moment anyway... but honestly, this would be a little more than just tough luck...

Ok, i posted my reply before reading your apology. I would not be so tough otherwise...

But back to the problem - there is no way how the DOSBOX could destroy your HD. At worst it could only delete it, if you mounted the whole disc c:\ and started in DOSBOX some program to delete all directories on the mounted disc... But the program in DOSBOX cannot do anything else...
Anyway: do NOT throw away your hd yet, maybe the Windows installation is just damaged somehow and it will be repairable. Ask someone more experienced to have a look. I heard that most of damages in virus attacks etc. is caused by users trying to fix things...
If the HD is really bad - well, bad accidents happen. It could happen any time. We all use DOSBOX for years without any problems...DOSBOX simply copies its files, it does not change any system settings or shared libraries etc...

Mirek

Gave the HD to the Techsection of my University. They own it anyway...
The thing is that I never get this far. Mount something? No way... I clicked the butten and black screen ruled... as if I had pulled the plug.
Yet, I don't think there is much sence in keeping this discussion going. All I can hope is that those techguys will secure some of my data...

Backuping is always usefull... I work as a programmer and every day I try to backup my work on another medium (net/another hd/flash disc etc.). You never know when the fate strucks...

Mirek

I wonder if it really was DOSBox you ran. Someone might have tricked you into installing/running some bad program (the classical trojan horse) instead of true DOSBox. You know, virus scanners only detect known virii, and if someone who doesn't like you programmed something totally new and then made you download it, they would never identify it as "bad".

I still don't know if the HD was physically damaged or not.

As Mirek mentioned, it's possible that running DOSBox caused more power to be drawn by your computer. It could cause the CPU to run harder (and hotter), and possibly the graphics card too. Either of these would increase power usage, and possibly also cause a fan to turn on or increase its speed. A jolt like this could cause a flaky system to crash, and I suppose a very flaky power supply could break at a point like that. The quality standard of power supplies is supposedly a lot lower than it should be, with cheap ones tending to win in the market instead of ones that won't die. I'd have suggested buying a quality power supply and to to pick a trusted motherboard.. but, it's not your system, so it seems you didn't do it 😀. Anyway.. since it crashed the moment DOSBox started, it seems likely that DOSBox was sort of the straw that broke the computer's back, but if it really can't start up anymore, then it's almost certain the hardware was sort of busted and waiting for a moment to fry. No piece of software should be able to make that happen (well, perhaps a low-level driver could.. but, DOSBox doesn't have that kind of access).

Edit: Personally, my graphics card's got power mismanagement issues and I've found I can get a bluescreen from heavy scrolling in notepad or firefox (notepad is by far the deadliest, though it takes very abnormal use to do it), whereas it very rarely has trouble with any other usage. Though my power supply is one of the best, it doesn't match my graphics card's requirements even though it's not a particularly fast card. After a lot of reading and testing, I still can't be sure why it's crashing. I'd need to start swapping parts. Not much point in me mentioning that.. I guess my point is that once a crash is sufficiently bad, it's a hardware/driver problem rather than an application problem.. so at that point, applications known to be safe can trigger any and all nastiness.

Just got an email from techsection. They asked me if the data was very important. They say it would be a lot of work to restore even a small part of it.
They say various sectors of the HD are damaged. I don't know what this means but I hope it answers pushers question...

That answers my question. It probably was a power surge. That's why I invested some money in getting myself an UPS.

Means it's dead meat... no rescue there, right?
Sorry I sak here but our techguys tend to answer one question per year...

Yes. It means it's physically damaged (it has several bad sectors), so it needs to be replaced. If you didn't have any important data, don't worry, hard drives are not that expensive.

Doesn't even have to be a power surge... harddisks sometimes just die.

Now, can anybody for sure tell me, that this wasn't caused by DOSBOX?

I am pretty sure DOSbox doesn't have anything to do with it.

As far as your computer is concerned DosBox is no different from Microsoft Office/Doom 3/Windows XP/etc.

DosBox uses your processor just like any program. So if DosBox uses alot of processor time then that in turn causes more heat to be produced.....just like any program run on your computer.

DosBox uses your hard drive just like any program. So if DosBox uses your hard drive then that in turn causes it to spin more, which in turn will eventually cause your hard drive to fail because it's a mechanical device.

Dosbox uses your memory just like any program. So if Dosbox uses your memory then that in turn causes your memory to heat up, which in turn will eventually cause your RAM to fail if you don't have proper cooling.

DosBox uses your video card just like any program. So if DosBox uses your video card then that in turn causes your video cards' processor/memory to heat up, which in turn will eventually cause your video card to fail.

So no. Just like any program run on a computer we cannot tell you if DosBox causes your problem. It may have, it may not. Most likely it was the straw that broke the camele's back. Your computer already had the problem, DosBox just allowed it to surface. Supposedly....we still don't really have any details from your on what exactly happened and you do not seem technically enclined so I doubt we ever will......which means that you'll likely keep on blaming DosBox.....too bad.