Yeah, I saw this when I Googled it. I don’t think I need Nvidia graphic drivers because I don’t have their graphics card (checked in ‘Device Manager’), I’ve got ‘Intel HD Graphics 3000’. I had my mouse and keyboard plugged in, I don’t know if maybe this caused the problem because it’s a laptop and it already has it’s own keyboard and mouse. However, I updated to 8.1 successfully 3 or 4 times in the past with the keyboard and mouse connected.

Now, I’ve clean installed (deleted partitions) Windows 8 from the disc again, used SlimDrivers to update all my drivers, fully updated Windows 8 and uninstalled all uneccessary Windows apps. Despite doing all of this, Windows still has the ‘!’ on my laptop in the ‘Devices and Printers’ section of Control Panel and in the Device Manager the same symbol appears on two devices which are both named ‘Base System Device’ under the ‘Other devices’ section. I know this means Windows is saying these things need troubleshooting but I’ve noticed after a previous Windows 8 clean install that troubleshooting these devices in Windows was what started my hard disk light flashing constantly and it never stopped until reinstalling Windows, I don’t know if this was just a coincidence. Is there a better way to troubleshoot these devices or is it best to use the Windows troubleshooter?

One more thing, I want to make sure my system is in the best possible state before attempting another Windows 8.1 upgrade so I don’t get the error again. Is there anything you can suggest other than the updates I’ve already made?

Thanks for all your help.