If you have never been able to open the control panel you may have overlooked uploading the files at /forums/admin/
At least for me that is where the control panel files are located.
If you see the control panel link in the forum when you log on that should mean that your are the admin or at least have rights to it. If you were not the admin you would have a message that you "must have proper permission. Double check your folders to see if the admin folder exists and see if the files are there. There may be some missing or corrupted or permissions are set wrong in the folders.
I would think you can re upload all the files in the admin folder without the need to run the install again.
If you just open your browser and type www.mysite,com/forums/admin what do you get? Change the url to where the forum is installed with /admin at the end.
