Windows 8.1 awful upgrade!

I upgraded to 8.1 as directed by numerous prompts from the wndows store back about two days ago. This crashed my system. I was able to speak with tech support online about my issue with NO help. It's almost like nobody at HP has experienced the Windows 8.1 updrade crashing people's computers.  
The update/system crash occured on Wednesday the 21st, 2015. I spent four hour online through a tablet trying to get support and with no solution.
I tried again yesterday Thursday the 22nd, 2015 and this time a member of tech support called me to walk me through a factory recovery to wipe my system clean to attempt to restore it. As I'm tryping this today on the 23rd, and I left my computer up running all night, it's almost like it's stuck now.
So here we are on the 23rd, 2015 and I've lost ALL of my files, I cannot get someone from HP who is not reading off of a script to help me resolve this issue. 
I've also only had this laptop for almost two years. Everything was great until that update.
*Buyer Beware.....

Remove the hard disk and put it in a usb enclosure to connect to another Windows PC in oprder to attempt to recover your files. This issue had nothing to do with the fact that it was an HP product.
All you need to do is perform a factory image recovery with the recovery media you should have created by now. That will return your notebook to the factory delivered  Windows operating system it was delivered with. 
Do yourself the big favor of:
1) Turning off automatic update for Windows. Select the "let me know when updates are available but let me choose whether to download and install them"option. Always take a look to see what the updates are for.  
2) Always periodically save important files to an external usb flash drive or hard disk. A NAS (network attached storage) device is my external file backup of choice. 
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

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