Just fyi for anyone else in a similar situation, I did call support and they indicated there is currently an issue with activating 2018 which they are working on, and confirmed 2017 and prior can no longer be activated on a re-install. Not sure I see the logic in not allowing me to re-activate software I paid for when had I not had the harddisk failure, it would have merrily kept working, but that is a fight for another day....
I must say, response time on this forum and the phone support was quick and responsive!
