blah789

What is important to you? The data, or getting the system back up and running again?
If you don't care about the data, then your idea was good (reinstalling from scratch). If you're trying to get the data back, that was the worst thing to attempt, because you're overwriting what's under there.
If you want the data back, you'll probably want to use file recovery software. Ask in the hard drive board for a good list. Basically you'll attach the hard drive as a slave drive and boot from the OS on another drive, then run the recovery software and copy what can be salvaged to the running drive. You can also try this by putting the old drive into a USB enclosure.

As for trying to boot from the CD I'm not sure what would prevent it from booting. If the setting in BIOS has been set, then the CD drive should be bootable. Are you sure the disc itself is bootable? Insert it into another computer and try booting from it.