OS 10.10 Install stuck at "20 minutes remaining"

[Jonbrick]

For the past ½ hour, the upgrade installation of OS 10.10 from 10.9 is stuck at "20 minutes remaining" om my late 2012 macMini. I'm tempted to just hit the power button to off. Thank goodness for my iPad. Suggestions?

 

[chscag]

Let it go on at least for an hour or so. There have been reports by other users of it taking up to 2 hours to complete that step. Be patient for awhile before you attempt to restart. Also, you hopefully made a full backup of everything before you started the upgrade?

 

[Jonbrick]

You were right! Sometimes I just don't have the patience that it takes. So in order to give it the time to load, I joined a friend down at our local brew pub for a couple of Irish Porters. And when I came home, it was done! Thanks.

 

[chscag]

Nothing like a couple of cool ones to temper an impatient soul. Have fun.

 

[rudeboy64]

Hi, I'm updating from 10.6.8 to yosemite 10.10 and on a iMacnafter restart it sticks at 22 minutes remaining and then says it can not install "file system or repair failed. I can't quit now because it won't let me select the old 10.6.8 disk as it "could not gather enough information" suggestions please, am having to use iPad

 

[chscag]

Did you make a backup prior to updating to Yosemite? If you did, shut down, reboot with your Snow Leopard DVD, run Disk Utility from the DVD to try to repair the hard drive. If the hard drive repairs OK, install Snow Leopard and then restore your backup. If the hard drive can not be repaired, you need to replace it. If no backup was made, you may lose all your data.

 

[rudeboy64]

Thanks for reply...
No, didn't do back up (I know, big mistake)
is there any other way to retrieve data from hard drive, when I looked in utilities it still shows data on HD when I select it?

 

[MacInWin]

So it will boot? Or is booted? Mounted? If so, and if you can see the drive, you can copy off your data to an external drive. Depending on the state of the drive at this point, you may need to reinstall your apps, but you might get away with a backup that works for a restore.

 

[rudeboy64]

Hey, I think I'm confusing things... I was installing Yosemite OS and the install was stuck on 22 minutes remaining. I then got a message that the file system or repair failed. I tried restart but it failed again, giving me the same message... Now I can't quit the installer because it won't let me restart from my original HD with 10.6.8 either. Is there another way for me to reboot my 'original OS 10.6.8 start up disk' , if not, can I retrieve data from the hard drive before I have to do a restore and how do I do that? thanks for any solutions or suggestions

Jimmy

 

[chscag]

Follow the directions I gave you in my first reply. You're going to need your original Snow Leopard DVD though. Do you still have it?

 

[rudeboy64]

thanks chscag,

I do have the original DVD, if I go that way to reboot what are the chances of me losing the data as I have some photos and files I would really like to save.
i.e. Is there another way of getting the files from the HD before I restore?

Just to let you know the iMac is stuck on the osx installer, when I insert the DVD do I need to do anything when I start up?

 

[alicepattinson]

I think your suffering bootloop. Maybe your connection while updating suddenly timed-out.

 

[rudeboy64]

Hiya Alice, internet okay at the time, I've tried to install the update a number of times and it keeps giving me the same message "file system or repair failed".
My problem now is I'm stuck in the installer and when I try reboot from the OSX 10.6.8 on my HD it says it 'hasn't got enough information" and I'm back in the installer.

I could try restore from the original DVD 10.6.8 but I would like to save my files. Is there an other way to retrieve the data before I do a restore.

 

[chscag]

You can try this to save your data:

Remove the hard drive from your Mini and place it in an external SATA to USB carrier. Then attach it to another Mac by USB and see if you can copy your data off the drive that way. If you're successful, you can then go ahead and use your Snow Leopard DVD to wipe the drive and reinstall Snow Leopard. But make sure you run repairs on that drive. I suspect you're probably going to have to replace it though.