For anyone else as dense as I, the error was all mine.
In the field where it asks for my name/email I was only copying the Email WITHOUT MY ACCOUNT NAME that appears before it as part of the WHOLE.
Yes, the overheating caused a restart loop which caused the C drive to become corrupted, so I bought a new one – reinstalled Windows with my user license – and began the arduous task of setting things back they way they were. Because I wanted nothing to do with META I had been ‘unplugging’ the internet from the back of the PC when using VR so I didn’t have to deal with their crap at META after they bought Oculus. Heck – my Rift is so old they didn’t make hand controllers yet . . .
Thanks for getting back to me. I’m a bit confused as I did all this on the ‘current’ PC with the new drive/installation.
Perhaps this is something you need to do in house so I’ll just pretend I’m starting new again like I did a few days back.