First and foremost.
Why did you need Boot Mgr.
And Second,were you trying to dual boot or something in that field?
my setup is dual boot: two hdds, 320wd, and 160wd. 320:vista. 160:xp.

Thank you both for your replies.

First, the drive is a single boot drive (i.e., only Vista Home Basic).

Second, I can't answer "Why did you need Boot Mgr" but when I turn on the computer then Vista doesn't start up and I get instead:

BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

then I know I have a problem that needs to be addressed. I tried the solution I mentioned in my original post because that matched the problem I was having.

Thirdly, I tried "bootrec /fixboot" but that didn't do the trick either.

I tried a few other things as well (the laptop actually belongs to a friend and I have my own laptop side-by-side for comparison purposes).

I would like to avoid resetting the OS to first day factory install (after, of course, I get my friend's data off) so I turn this community for any assistance.