Mountain Lion install stuck on "Less than a minute"

I've left mine for almost 24 hours now and its stuck on less than a minute....

I figured it would be done if i left it over-night but no progress after 'less than a minute'

Considering restarting even if i loose all my files (i just hope it doesnt damage my harddrive)

Anyone able to tell me if I should just leave it? The bar is still moving but I cant tell if im getting any progression... :\

All those happened to me with my brand new iMac 3.4 ghz i7. Nothing got to work. The amazing solution was to start the computer holding Command+R and the recovery over the internet started and worked flawlesly. For those who got a fast internet connection and obviously bought Mountain Lion from App Store this must be the only solution for an error free and safe reinstall the computer. Hope this will be usefull for all.

I had the same problem. During the update instalation, I was asked to close Safari and I did. However, the computer still just hung ther at 'less than a minute'. I realized that my husbands account probably still had Safari running and logged into his account to check. Safari was indeed running and I closed it down. When I logged back into my account (the main one), the update finished up and eerything restarted just fine. This may have just been a coincidence, but I had been waiting hours, with no progress. I'd be interested to know if this solves any problems.

on my mac mini (2010 unibody with DVD drive), doing a complete reinstall from scratch, it hung at "About 9 minutes remaining". 1 hour of waiting, it said "10 mintes remaining". 2 hours later its sayihg "About 13 minutes remaining".

Appaling. I dont know whether to hit the cancel button, or just to power the thing off and pray. If I wait 24 hours, it will probably go up to "About 60 minute remaining".

I had the same problem, after updating my mac easily, I tried to update my wife's mac, got stuck on one minute left, rebooted by using the power key, and all personal files had gone!!!!!!

After thinking I would be killed ;-) (had not backed it up before), I discovered the update had created a new user, so loged out, changed user to the original, and all files and settings were back (I breathed now), and maverick was installed, so went to system settings and deleted the new user...

Seems to be fine now.

I have the same problem in a mac mini unibody (with DVD drive). I formatted the tiny 320GB HD, then tried to install mountain lion from install DVD, but always hands with X minutes to go. For every hour I leave it, X goes up by a few minutes. I cant do the install from internet because a) I dont have fast internet (Im in spain - its like a 3rd world), and b) I didnt buy the OS from the app store.

I tried rebooting after waiting 8 hours the first time. No luck so far. How can Apple have such bugs with no fixes?