MacBook Pro: OS X reinstall is taking "forever", (over 12 hours) to finish

Solution 1:

This is not common. I have never had this problem and I upgrade to every new version.

I always create a bootable USB installer. Here are the instructions from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5856. This will let you check your disk and reformat. I always reformat so that I know everything is the way it is supposed to be, but it is a bit more time consuming.

Solution 2:

What is your installation source? Are you installing via just the recovery partition? If so, it's technically installing over the internet. In other words, it's copying a ~5 GB installation via the internet. If you put Mavericks on a thumb drive, then your only limitation is the speed of your USB bus.

I'd suggest pulling down the installer on another Mac and creating a local installation source. Installing it over the internet is a multi-hour process.