Did you by any chance mount the C: drive in DOSBox to the root of your real C: drive? DOSBox warns you about the potential danger of doing that. For one, C:\WINDOWS in DOSBox is then C:\WINDOWS on the host, and installing Windows in DOSBox under those conditions is perilous. I would think that Windows system file protection would prevent most damage, but possibly not all of what could happen.

I was using Dfend reloaded, and I put the contents of my Win 3.1 disc in a folder in VirtualHD called wininst. Windows 3.1 installed to a Windows drive in VirtualHD

Try a cold restart if you haven't already; and check that your BIOS settings are correct, particularly for the disk drives. DOSBox isn't the sort of program that kills partitions on host drives, so you seem to have experienced some coincidental malfunction of your system.

What BIOS settings would I be on the lookout for? All I can personally tell without help is that it can't detect the HD.

Thank you for your prompt answers and for helping me, btw.

If you followed the guide why have you used dfend? Sounds as if you killed your drive somehow...

Because dfend is how I use all of my DOSBOX stuff. How could I kill my drive through installing a program through it? I'm not criticising your guide, I'm just trying to get help fromthe only experts about this sort of thing I can think of.

Through dosbox you can't and especially not following the guide.

Dfend is just a frontend. I followed the guide to the letter otherwise, dfend just removes some middlemen.

Actually dfend adds a middleman 😉

MasterGrazzt wrote:

my Win 7 installation is screwed. After using it for a bit, the screen flashed blue, the computer rebooted, and the BIOS loads in an infinite loop, and can't detect the HD. What's more, if I try to use my recovery disc to reinstall Windows, it just displays two small partitions (one 10.6 gigs, one 4.3 gigs) that it cannot install Windows on. Help!

Btw I am on a Samsung laptop, using the Samsung recovery disc. I'm not surexwhat the motherboard is, but it is a Phoenix BIOS. I'm not sure about most of the stats. I apologize for the short post but I'm using a Galaxy pad to type this.

DosBox didn't do this.
Here's what I'd do:
-If the recovery disk includes a recovery console boot into it and see if the Windows partition is recognized, try fixmbr and fixboot. If that fails...
-I'd boot into Ubuntu's live CD Disk Utility and check S.M.A.R.T status. If status reports everything's fine then...
-I'm not really familiar with Samsung recovery disks, but if they boot into Windows setup, check the type of both partitions (are they NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, something else?) if you can delete both partitions and create a fresh one with all available space. If this fails...
-If I'm comfortable opening the laptop I'd do so and check the HDD connection for firmness (it probably includes a "socket" thingie over the HDD connector, check that first). If I'm not, I'd take it to a service center.
-If it's not a connection problem, it sounds like a faulty hard drive (BIOS should be able to detect it, disregarding the partitions): maybe the hard drive got banged (did you drop the laptop?); maybe it overheated and decided to commit suicide; maybe it ran its useful life; maybe you just had bad luck (not DosBox related, though) sometimes hard drives just die.

It would have been swell if you copied some information from that BSOD to check what caused it (the error and the hex number).

Unfortunately the error flashed up and disappeared in a second. When I attempt to access the console, I can't because the repair option says it isn't compatible with the version I have. The two partitions I apparently have are neither FAT32 or NTFS.

Did you try the other things I said? Is the partition FAT 16? Are you sure you didn't mount c: as c when installing Windows 3.1??

Uh, just a shot in the dark, but try this:

Enter your BIOS and check for an AHCI-Controller option. Disable it, and your SATA harddisk will be treated as normal IDE. If this works, you can update your drivers in Windows afterwards or at least rescue all your data before wiping your system.

This trick worked for me after a screwed Windows 8 upgrade installation that left me with a non-responding harddisk.