H8-1280t - No Windows 8.1 for me

Question

I bought my h8-1280t in March of 2012 with Windows 7, 64-bit.  I decided recently to upgrade to Windows 8, and that went well.
Within a few days, I got the popup telling me 8.1 was available in the Windows store.  I downloaded the update, passed all the compatibility checks, and then was asked to restart my computer.  At restart, I would briefly see a blue screen, then the system would restart to Windows 8 and tell me that the upgrade to 8.1 had failed with the errors 0xC1900101 0x20017.
I troubleshot this on my own for several days, then in frustration, I called Microsoft.  The level one tech spend about two hours with me before escalating me.  The escalation tech called back and spend another three hours before scheduling another call with me.  None of this got me anywhere.  Same error.  On the third call with Microsoft, I was shown the HP support page for my PC with no drivers for Windows 8.1.  Microsoft said this meant my PC would not support 8.1.  
I contacted HP support via chat and was told the same thing.
Has anyone out there been able to run Windows 8.1 on an h8-1280t?  Mine is a six-core i7 system with SATA 3.0  and an SSD -- hardly outdated hardware, and it's maddening to me that 8.1 won't run on it.  I have an HP mini 1101 from 2009 right next to me that's running 8.1.
I know, the official answer is that it's unsupported.  But I'm willing to try unsupported things to get it working -- especially if someone can tell me what drivers are the problem.
If nothing else, this post helps me vent.  I'm sad that my best hardware won't run 8.1.  If anyone else is in a similar situation, I'd like to hear about it.

Answer 1

In case anyone else is running in to this same problem, here's the solution that worked for me.
All I had to do was go in to Device Manager and update the driver for Intel(R) C600 series chipset SATA AHCI Controller, although no one at Microsoft or HP would tell me this.  With Windows 8, I had version 3.0.1.7016.  The version that finally allowed me to upgrade to Windows 8.1 (and is now running under Windows 8.1) is 3.8.0.1106.
I got the new driver here:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23257/Intel-RSTe-AHCI-SCU-Software-RAID-driver-for-Windows...
After I extracted the files, I right clicked on Intel(R) C600 series chipset SATA AHCI Controller in Device Manager, clicked the Driver tab, and clicked Update Driver.  I then chose "Browse my computer for driver software" and entered the path to the extracted files.  Within a second or so the driver was updated.  I restarted my computer as the prompt suggested.
I then went back to the Windows Store and the Windows 8.1 upgrade proceded and completed.   
How did I find that this was the problem?
I created a new partition on my OS drive and did a dual-boot clean install of Windows 8.1.  It installed and ran flawlessly (as I thought it would).  I noticed, however, that the clean install did not show the Intel C600 device in device manager.  Instead, it was using "Standard SATA AHCI Controller," which was listed under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.  That made me suspect the Intel C600 driver.  Updating that driver allowed the Windows 8.1 upgrade to proceed on my C: drive, keeping all of my files, programs, and settings.