Upgrade to Ultimate then Unknowing clean install

I upgraded to Ultimate from XP Pro, was able to activate and things worked
okay. For a few days..

Then I go an error message that my MBR was corrupt and the machine became
unbootable. I was able to reboot with the Ultimate disk and it did what I
thought was a repair install although I had to reinstall all my software.

Things went well for several days and today I get a note that I need to
Activate. No problem, I thought but I was prevented from activating by the
message that the disk I had would only permit an upgrade. Seems my repair
was a clean install.

Am I stuck having to do a reinstall with XP and then the upgrade (I suspect
the answer is yes) or is there a number I can call and a nice lady will make
it all better for me? Would the previous activation count for anything?

Thanks for any assistance,
Terry