SOLVED: Can't make a Rescue Disk

[priestlucas123]

Confirmed that a valid rescue USB drive is made, and that the UI does not update to show anything happening

[bob3160]

Confirmed that a valid rescue USB drive is made, and that the UI does not update to show anything happening

I've been told that an update and fix will be coming on Monday.

[champted]

I've been told that an update and fix will be coming on Monday.

They didn't happen to say which Monday, did they?

[bob3160]

I've been told that an update and fix will be coming on Monday.

They didn't happen to say which Monday, did they?

They did not.    Is it still not working

[priestlucas123]

Today I noticed that a minor build update occurred : now 18.4.2338 (build 18.4.3895.326)

The good news is the UI now works correctly when creating a USB Rescue Disk, and the created rescue disk boots and scans normally.

Thanks Avast team!

[mchain]

Can confirm.   But is seems as if it is created and installed on an USB drive properly only if the old avast .iso file is deleted (in this case, one from May 19th, 2018).  Will test to see if it boots and scans as it should.

Multiple fails to create, .iso file was found in standard user documents folder.  Worked only after throwing the old file away.

[Majhoul]

I've discovered that it does actually create an .iso file even though the display sticks at "Waiting to start process" and 0%.  I burned that file to a CD and was able to boot from it and run a test scan.

This was on my main computer running Win7 Pro and Avast 18.3.2333 (I always delay updating for a month or two).

As an experiment, I updated to Avast 18.4.2338 on a backup computer also running Win7 Pro.  This time, it created the .iso file with proper progress reports.

I should add that in many years of running avast, it has always failed to create a USB rescue disk.

Finally, may I ask what the UI designer was smoking when he hid the Rescue Disk command in a barely visible text link on the Scans page.  It used to have a prominent position in the list of installed components but it took me quite a while to find it when the UI was redesigned.  Mind you, it appears to have been more thrown together at random than designed.

[alanb]

...may I ask what the UI designer was smoking when he hid the Rescue Disk command in a barely visible text link on the Scans page.  It used to have a prominent position in the list of installed components but it took me quite a while to find it when the UI was redesigned.

(almost) my thoughts exactly.  Rescue Disk is clearly a “component” and should be listed as such, along with its configuration options (IMHO).

[champted]

As an experiment, I updated to Avast 18.4.2338 on a backup computer also running Win7 Pro.  This time, it created the .iso file with proper progress reports.

Multiple fails to create, .iso file was found in standard user documents folder.  Worked only after throwing the old file away.

I don't have any .iso files in C:\Users\<username>\Documents but it still wouldn't move off 0% when attempting to create a USB rescue disk with a blank formatted USB drive.
After 20 minutes, I X'd out of Avast, and looked at the USB drive with Explorer.  It showed some files on the USB drive, but attempting to boot from it was unsuccessful.

Windows 10 Pro, v.1709
Avast Free 18.4.2338 (build 18.4.3895.326)

[MartinZ]

Please restart your PC and try it again.

[champted]

Please restart your PC and try it again.

Thanks, but that didn't help.

My original problem was fixed by updating to ver. 18.5.2342 (build 18.5.3931.0) .  That was the good news.

The bad news was that the resulting USB key wouldn't boot on any of my PCs, including the PC that was used to create it.  I tried it on a different USB key, and that one worked just fine in all my various PCs.

I finally figured out what was going on after using the GParted utility to dig deeply into the difference(s) between the two USB keys.

Long story short:  BEFORE creating the USB rescue disk with Avast, the USB key needs to be initialized as a device with an MSDOS partition table, NOT a GPT partition table.

I'd like to suggest that either of the following be implemented in Avast:
a.) information be included in the program to the effect that before starting the process of creating the USB rescue disk, the USB key be initialized with an MSDOS partition table, or
b.) the Avast USB rescue disk creation utility be modified such that it creates an MSDOS partition table on the USB key before it starts formatting and writing the rescue disk information to the USB key.

We can mark this SOLVED.  Thankx to everyone who contributed to the solution.

[razalihusain]

I see that it has been 120 days since the last post.
I bought it just today, and I having this problem in Nov 2019.
The status stuck at 40% even though I had reformatted the USB stick many times.
Put it in back and it still started at 40% went up to 43% before stopping and said: "Can't make a Rescue Disk".
There seems no response since then.
Please help, I just bought this program and it doesn't seem to be working at all.

[Asyn]

-> https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=229578.0

[rocksteady]

Why is this post marked "SOLVED" when it clearly isn't.

[DavidR]

Why is this post marked "SOLVED" when it clearly isn't.

Obvious really.

Because the Original Poster marked it as solved.

« Last Edit: 05 July 2018, 12:55:47 by champted »

That was way back in time over a year ago and why it isn't a good idea to breath life into a very old topic for what would have been an old version of Avast.

What worked (was resolved) is now broken.