Created partition without bootcamp, now i can't delete it

Question

Hi Everyone,
I was trying to install Windows 8 on my Late 2011 MBP and it was not possible with Bootcamp. I tried it and got an interesting error like 'No bootable device...'. Then i decided to try to install Windows 8 without Bootcamp. Created a partition by Disk Utility on OS X, booted by Windows 8 Installer USB stick, deleted and formatted the partition by Windows 8 Installer. But still, i was not able to install Windows 8, don't know why.
Now, my problem is that i don't care about Windows 8 no more, i just want to merge the Mac partition and empty partition but i can't. In disk utility (in OS X), i don't see any allocated space, but if i boot by Windows 8 Installer, there are partitions or allocated spaces created by it and i can see all the partitions. I don't know what to do, how can i merge the partitions for using it in OS X? I think i need some serious help.
If there is nothing to do, i will create a backup of my files in an external drive and delete the internal drive. Will it work? But i don't want to do this since i have lots of files and my Mac uses usb 2.0 port.
P.S: I think it is not important but specifications of my Mac are:
Late 2011 MacBook Pro 15'', i7 2.4 GHz, AMD HD6770M 1 GB, 8 GB of RAM, Samsung EVO 840 120 GB SSD, Hitachi Travelstar 7k1000 1 TB HD, no optical drive.

Answer 1

Using Bootcamp Assistant re-arranges your partitions in a specific order, which is EFI/ESP, OSX, OSX Recovery HD, BC/Windows. If you do not use BCA to remove Windows but use Disk Utility to manipulate the BC/Windows partition, BC/Windows can be deleted, but Recovery HD will not let you merge disk space back into OSX partition. BCA while removing also rearranges Recovery HD to emerge the freed space back into your main OSX partition.
This is why it is recommended that DU should not be used to change partitions, if BCA is also used.
BCA creates a Hybrid MBR, while a straight W8 installer uses EFI to boot on 2013+ Macs, but prior Macs, like the 2011 MBPs do not fully support W8 direct installation.
In either case, as tbirdvet suggests, the recourse now is to back up, use Internet Recovery (Command+Opt+R - you must see a spinning globe), erase your internal disk, and restore from backup.
Please also see OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support.
Thanks, i think it seems like this is the only solution, luckily, since the system is on the ssd i don't have to reinstall the OS. Now i am creating a backup then i will erase the disk and load my backup.
Since you have two physical drives, being treated as two separate disks, depending on which disk you were manipulating for Windows, you may have to erase one or both drives.
If the second disk (HDD) was your Windows destination, and you removed the original built-in Optical drive, BCA set the system to boot from the unavailable Optical drive which resulted in 'No bootable device' error.