Avast 2014 Rescue Disk

[jtrainer]

Hey all,

I've got  an odd problem with creating a rescue disk on USB or CD (iso file).  I'm new to Avast so I tried looking at online information and searching the forums before posting but didn't find much to my situation.  I'm running Windows 8.1 Enterprise 64 bit on my laptop and install Avast 2014 Free Edition (2014.9.0.2006).  I saw in the user interface for avast to create a rescue disk and since I have found those helpful in the past, I decided to create one.  If I click on "USB" to install on USB, it goes through the motions but nothing is written to USB Flash Drive.  The flash drive is 4GB and not write protected.  I then decided to try to create a CD ISO file but when I select folder (local hard drive) to write the ISO file, again it acts like it creates it but nothing is written to the folder specified.

Now one thing I noticed that is odd to me is when it starts the process to create a rescue disk (usb or cd).  I see a progress bar that shows "installing toolkit" and it starts off around 1/3 of the bar already filled (so it doesn't look like it start at 0) and progresses for about 5-10 seconds, then I end up at the regular "rescue disk screen" so I never see a completion message.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled Avast 2014 Free but still had the same problem.  I also used the avast clear utility to remove Avast and then reinstall Avast but still see the same problem.  I've run out of ideas so I was curious if anyone else has seen this behavior.  Also, I was hoping to confirm if the Rescue Disk feature is supposed to work on the Free Edition (just wanted to make sure its not a "paid edition" feature).

Thanks for your help!

[giogio]

Hi ,
I think there's a problem with this feature if you're using a non english version of avast.
Try to go to the settings->appearance and add the english language.
You can leave your native language, is not necessary to change in english... but for creating USB/CD now is needed to have installed also english..

[jtrainer]

Hey giogio,

Thanks for the reply!  I just double-checked and my language is set to English in Avast.  Not sure if this will help, but I am also running English for my Windows 8.1.  As crazy as this sounds, should I add another language and just ensure the language is set to English?

Edit - just for fun I added Russian, set the language to Russian,  and tried to create a disk (both USB and ISO) and it didn't work.  I wasn't expecting it to based upon your reply but I still wanted to try it.   I then set the language back to English and tried it again but still no joy - no data was written to USB flash drive or specified folder for the CD ISO.

[giogio]

You can try to add another language and report if you solve the problem.
I had the same problem you've described and in two times I've solved as I've described to you.

Regards

[jtrainer]

Unfortunately adding another language didn't help but it was worth a shot.

[jtrainer]

OK, I have an update regarding my situation.

I decided to check my Windows application event log after trying to create the rescue disk (USB or CD) and I had an event ID logged referencing a corrupted cab file (972214af....cab).  The event ID was 11335 with a source of msiinstaller referencing the cab file.  I did a search of my system and I found that cab file under \users\user-name\documents\AvastPEToolkit.  I was unable to open that file so I deleted it and ran the rescue disk process again and it re-downloaded the file (downloading toolkit) and I was able to create a rescue disk.

Just for kicks I uninstalled Avast 2014 and discovered that directory was left behind so I was thinking that I got a corrupt download initially.  Since the directory was left behind, that would explain why uninstalling and reinstalling avast didn't fix my issue.  NOW here is where it gets weird.  I deleted that directory (AvastPEToolkit) since I had uninstalled Avast 2014 and then I installed Avast again.  Next I went to create a rescue disk and the process seemed to work fine BUT it didn't recreate that directory I had deleted.   Now I have never had any version of Avast installed on my system prior to the 2014 so it shouldn't be something left over from a previous install.   So it would seem that the corrupt cab file I had in that directory was causing my problem but I can't explain why it never came back after I removed Avast and that directory since I assume Avast put it there in the first place. 

So at this point I quit focusing on that directory and I burned the rescue.iso to a CD and I was able to successfully boot to it just fine.  Unfortunately, a USB flash drive never booted; all I got was missing operating system.  I formatted the key as FAT32 and NTFS (plus quick and full formats) but it never would boot.  I then saw some posts that other people had the same problem and one person was suspecting a corrupt boot sector.  I then used EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition to rebuild the MBR on the flash drive (I told it to rebuild as Windows 7) and then the flash drive worked!

Anyhow, I wanted to pass along what I had found so far and hopefully it will help someone else.

[mekkano]

To jtrainer:  I have installed avast free 2014.9.0.2006, and I had exactly the same problem: every time I tried to create either usb or cd, both seemed to work but at the end none of them were created.  I live in mexico and I use w7sp1 ultimate in spanish so avast also was installed in spanish.  I did what giogio mentioned, I mean I installed the English language to avast and switch avast to english GUI and voila! I was able to create both USB and CD .iso file.

Maybe you might try to install avast in spanish in first place, then add english language to avast, switch avast to english and finally try to create usb or cd.

Thanks giogio for the tip of installing english language to avast.   Finally after several moths of googling about this issue I was able to create usb/cd bootables. I bought AVAST Rescue CD more than one year ago but it has errors, for example: I cannot choose what drives or folders to scan the program terminates abnormally and crashes.