MAC HD gone after removing an empty partition

Friend asked me to help him add windows 7 via bootcamp.

He has:

Macbook 13inch early 2011

10.8.5

SSD swapped in for cd drive (this has caused me so much frusturation) still has regular hd as well

Windows 7 professional key (installed with virtual emulation)

Windows 7 home premium retail disk and key

So firstly I could not get windows 7 installed. I tried the USB methods, 2 different cd drives, a usb formatted by bootcamp and lots and lots of restarts. So in my frusturation I think that it may possibly be having issues with the emulation install. So I remove the partition off the traditional 500gb HD. Note that mac osx was installed on the ssd and there was no data on the HD besides folder formats. The computer immediately reboots. When it comes back Mac HD is gone from desktop. It is not hidden, the pathways seem to have been destroyed. I can't get into the userfiles under the user signed in or the downloads folder etc.

I do not have the install disk for mac os x and he lives an hour away so I'm trying to fix my mistakes (?) before he comes back to get it. I'm not currently trying to get progress on getting windows onto it because I just want to get it back to how it was for starters. Any help would be appreciated.