Mavericks install stuck at "about a second remaining"

I've installed many more machines with Mavericks than i can remember, and one thing that has almost always worked, is if you force the Mac to do something else, say you click the apple-menu in the top-left corner and choose 'Startup Disk...'

Somehow this seems to spark some activity somewhere and cause it to 'wake up' out of it's nerve-wrecking 'last second'..

So, when it's saying 'less than a second remaining', go to the Apple menu and click 'Startup disk...'

Just my two cents...

The first time I tried a clean install:

1. Repartitioned with DiskUtility (after booting to the OSX Mavericks USB stick I created.)
2. Installed OSX.
3. It "froze" at the "about a second remaining." I didn't look at the clock but I know I let it sit for well over 15 minutes.
4. Forced a reboot with power button and left with an unbootable drive.

Second attempt:

1. Booted to OSX Marvericks USB install stick.
2. Launched terminal. Ran the command diskutil zerodisk disk0 to wipe the disk (probably unnecessary, but gives you peace of mind if you have trust issues with the Disk Utility GUI app.) Do this step at your own risk, "zerodisk" is a command, "disk0" is the UNIX identifier of the device (disk) I wanted to wipe and perform a clean install on.--It's much easier to really screw things up using the terminal. E.G. On your system, the drive you want to wipe won't necessarily be disk0.
3. Repartitioned with GUID partition map using Disk Utility app.
4. Installed OSX
5. It got "stuck" again at about a second remaining. Waited a few minutes (likely less than 15,) nothing happened.
6. Clicked the apple and opened startup disk. (OSX Installer window immediately disappeared, but system did not reboot.
7. I did NOT restart manually (via menus or power button.)
8. Closed startup disk window and opened terminal again.
9. Poked around in terminal a bit, looking at du and dir listings of the disk, etc.
10. While I was still poking around, the computer started lagging. After 15 seconds or so it started to reboot itself and the install continued normally!

Did me poking around, causing the installer to go into the background (starting at step 6, second attempt) help things along? Or was I just killing time waiting for it to do it's thing (and I happened not to interrupt the installer by poking at it.) Who knows.

My installer hung at about nine minutes remaining when doing a simple update. Hard reset after a couple of hours and the OS would not boot after that. Only option was to reinstall since i didn't have any backups (was a new installation anyway). The clean installation hung at "about one minute remaining" for a few hours and a hard reset was made again. What fixed it for me was skipping the logon part with Apple ID. Without signing in the installation started as it should. Mind you that i did not even reach the installation part the first time, it just got stuck at downloading installation files from Apple, but apparently they wipe stuff before installation process starts and all files are verified. So to sum up... wiped harddrive and skipping logon did the trick for me.

Same here -

(my unit is a late 2009 MBPro 8GB ram (upgraded) 128 SSD (Samsung 830 series) / 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo)

installation from a USB drive, after about 10 min installation progress running ok, hangs 5 min on "about a second remaining"

i switch to Apple menu and click 'Startup disk...'

then i quit it, and i setup the wi-fi, then i open the shell to look around

(after total of 5 min poking around ... ) the thing restarts on its own!

now it shows

.... and about 20 min later - TADA!

good luck to all - this is a nasty bug / hang with OSX

thank you Apple for making me work double for every buck i spend with you (i have an MB Air i don't event want to think about re-installing any time soon 😟)

good luck to all

cheers

-Nick

Mine did the same apart from it was stuck on "less than one minute remaining" for 18 hours, left overnight, ended up turning off via holding down power button. Turned it back on and the install had completed, just had to go through the set up process, all seems fine so far. So even though it was stuck installing it seems it had actually installed.

I came to the forum for exactly the same thing, but indeed after 15 minutes it finished. Now I am at the Apple on reboot with the spinner, I hope its the same thing, wait only, not a bad install.

I don't remember Lion or Moutain Lion doing this.

I've am currently experiencing this problem too.

I've tried several times and changed a few things alas still no Mavericks.

First attempt instal halted at "About a second remaining" for over an hour. I did a hard reset and tried exactly the same again - no luck.

Second attempt I re-installed the USB drive with Mavericks, erased the hard drive and tried again - halted at "About a second remaining" for over an hour.

Third attempt same as above and now halted at "About a second remaining" for the past hour and a half ... could anyone reasure me that this install taking well over 2 hours is normal as most are only experiencing problems for 10-15 mins ...

Thanks in Advance!

Same here...MacBook Pro early 2008, clean install using 8gig usb...hung at "about a second remaining". After about 15 minutes it rebooted automatically and the install is in progress. Here we go.....

Mavericks has been installed for some time now. I too had Thomasfromutrecht's experience the third time I tried to install (just after returning from a chat with a Genius). Don't remember what I touched but it "seemed" to prevent the timeout (which may actuallly be at the Apple server end). Of course it could have been a conicidence and the processing completed.

If you are near an Apple store just do yourself a flav-o-flav and make the genius appointment and bring the machine down and let them install from their diskimage, check your hard drive health and resolve any other issues that may exist on your machine. IT'S FREE!

Wish I had because in the meanwhile I've discovered an old Lacie.scsi kernel extension that I should have removed before installing, and other legacy junk after running etrecheck. Did I mention etrecheck? I did. Step Away from those suction cups!!

After waiting for over an hour I finally started clicking around the screen, using the keyboard to raise and lower screen brightness and volume and a few key presses on delete and function(fn). Was getting keyboard clicks when typing anything on the main keyboard (like input buffer was full or something) but all of that actually got it to go to the next step in about 30 seconds. So, it's worth trying to 'kickstart' the finalization of the process if it's been sitting for a while.

Good luck all!

Thanks Marcotor! That also worked for me as well. Turned off WIFI, let the Mac sit for about 5 minutes and it finally went to a grey screen, rebooted and continued as expected.

Setup: 2010 MBP 13 2.66 w/ 1tb SSHD + USB Install

Hey guys heres how i solved my issue ( mavericks install wouldn't work strait to my macbook hd - " completing install" waited hours and days over and over & it never worked)

i eventually took it to the apple store where they told me i had 2 options wipe it clean and re partition it (i did not have a back up) or to sit at the apple store watching my computer transfer files to a hard drive i would have had to buy // this process would of taken 2 full days since i have 700gbs i wasn't gonna let go.

so pretty much my optioned suck

1. i got a 64 gb usb that a re -partioned to GUID

2. turned the computer back on pressing command +R

3. i re installed mavericks into my new drive ( the usb)

4. tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa* it works and turned on - now i can go in and access my drive save all my stuff and now that its safe in a drive i can wipe my computer clean and life is good.

hope this helps someone i know i was not going to wipe my computer clean i had my life's work in there. PS. MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP FROM NOW ON

Most of the advice given here - to clutch waistband of trousers tightly and wait is good advice. A download and install worked for me, despite sitting through the endless lies from Apple regarding time remaining. Significantly, there seems to be no word from them regarding the stress they are causing with this shabby update.

The machine is now booted with the new OS - I hope the installed software is a quantum leap better than the installation.

I got the message for an hour on my iMac, and it's been there for over an hour on my MacBook. One thing that made me feel a little better is that I moved the mouse to the top of the screen and selected Window -> Log. The log displayed and confirmed that SOMETHING was going on. So I let it go and as I was writing this post, about 2 hours into the install, it finally finished, rebooted, and began the next phase of the install.