bootmgr missing???

I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium (64bit). Everything was well until I had some issues and decided to do an in-place-upgrade using the installation CD that I received from Dell. I received an error message during the "extracting files" portion of the install; code was 0x80070017 and the install was cancelled. I tried rebooting my computer and received the message    bootmgr missing press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart. I researched a little and decided it would be best to do a clean install (not a big deal, did not have much info on it anyway). I booted from the disk and followed the instructions and when I got to selecting which partition I wanted the OS installed on, they both seemed empty, nothing on them and all kinds of open space (both recovery and primary). I have more than enough hard drive space for this and had done it before some time ago so I know how to do it but research told me to use startup repair but there was no OS listed to repair. I tried system restore but no restore points were present (I had it set up do set up a restore point every time I installed something). Please help. If there is any additional info needed please let me know; I'm racking my brain over this and do not know what else to do. I have also tried command prompt entries to rebuild the bootmgr as directed by Microsoft help sites but nothing.... would really like this resolved soon as I am enrolled in online college.