Question: I am trying to install OpenSUSE 12.3 onto a (VirtualBox, on Windows) virtual machine. I have tried both the Net Install (-NET) and LiveCD (Gnome) installs. The installations proceed almost to completion, but then fail for a variety of reasons.

For the Net Install, it will install most of the way, then crash into the text mode fallback with the error message "an error occurred during the installation". For the LiveCD, it will freeze when it reaches the point of installing the bootloader.

I have tried scanning my disk for bad sectors or errors that would affect VirtualBox itself. I have also tried using a VirtualBox "fixed disk" rather than the "dynamic allocation".

What would cause this?

Answer: 
For me, I realized that I was giving my Virtual Machine 600 MB of memory. I tried giving the Virtual Machine 800 MB, and the installation completed slowly, but successfully!

In short, try giving your Virtual Machine more memory.
You can also get a prepackaged virtual machine image customized how you like it from [SuseStudio](http://www.susestudio.com). You can tell it to give you an OVF build of the vm and it will auto provision the VirtualBox machine with the proper configuration.

If that is not an option, you can opt for a text only "server" installation and then install whatever desktop environment you desire after the installation completes.