Forced Windows 8.1 Update

I am absolutely horrified at this attempt to force me to upgrade to 8.1.  I am in the middle of trying to solve possible hacking because alien phones are appearing on my netrowk and then - lo - I get a red flag in right bottom corner telling me to sign in with my latest password (which I wouldn't do because of above problems) and then in the right hand corner a bright yellow sign saying that 8.1 upgrade is in progress. I feel like I'm being forcibly being taken over by the likes of ISIS. Why is this happening? And how can I find out if  my OneDrive account is being invaded? Furious and awaiting return call from a network maintenance company.

This morning a blue banner appeared on my screen asking me when I wanted to restart my computer to continue to download the update to Win 8.1 (I have Windows 8).  At no time did I start the download process.  I selected "Remind me later" from the drop down.   A few minutes later, the download started, and the drop down only allowed me to select a time period to restart my computer (Now, 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours)!.  I was committed, and I never authorized this!  So I selected "Now" just to see what would happen.  I went to the Windows Store and lo and behold the update was downloading.  The update failed (I got an error 0xC1900101).  I disabled the update notification reminder using regedit (I was sick of seeing it every time I powered down my computer anyway)-but how could this happen?  This looked like a legitimate Windows notification.

The same thing just happened to me. What the deuce? I have 4 hours to stop it or I will not be happy. fells like Walmart. Its the only choice we get. Poo

TIP: See my colleague's ANSWER post in this recent, similar thread => http://answers.microsoft.com/thread/8c5d320f-bf25-45c4-b7e3-234687d51cf6

If you need further assistance getting Win8.1 installed on the SSD, please begin your own, new thread in this forum: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-windows_install-wininstalls

Good luck!  Over & outta here...

Computer is a Toshiba p875-s7102 dual-bay laptop with an Intel i7-3630qm processor and hm76 chipset. 24gb of RAM, 120GB SSD is the boot drive, 750 hdd is a storage drive.  Intel hd4000 integrated graphics.  The specific variant of the 0XC1900101 error is 0x20020017.  Windows 8 is baked in-no discs came with the computer.  I did create a recovery USB.  When I originally got it, it only had the HDD-I cloned Windows 8 to the SSD later, but still retained Windows 8 on the HDD.  Later I updated to Windows 8.1 on the HDD (initially I had some problems with the profile service, but then did a refresh and was able to successfully log into my Microsoft profile).  So I have a computer with two internal drives-the SSD is the boot drive with Windows 8, and the HDD has 8.1 which I can boot from by changing the boot order in the bios.  To my knowledge, all of my drivers are up to date (if you believe the Intel driver program).

[1] My other concern is why the update failed.

[2] Does it matter that I deleted the recovery partition when I migrated over to an SSD?

[3] I think I might disable the auto-update feature.

A1. Assuming you're referring to Win8.1 failing to install <EDIT> on the SSD drive </EDIT> & throwing a 0xC1900101 error, I'd have to know much more about the computer before I could even venture to hazard a guess. I can tell you that you're certainly not alone! => http://goo.gl/Y9Lgtt

A2. As far as installing Win8.1 is concerned, no. But if you need to do a Refresh or a Reset, you'll need to use the discs that came with the computer or the set of Recovery discs you created <EDIT> and saved to the USB drive </EDIT> earlier to do it.

A3. Why not just change your AU setting to the Check for updates but let me choose... option? That way, no updates will download without your approval (but any approved updates will automatically install without any further prompting).

REMINDER: Support for Win8 ends in January 2016. Win8.1 must be installed by 12 January 2016 or the computer will NOT be offered ANY further updates.

[Last Revised (as marked) - 06 Sept-14, 21:07 UTC]