I completely erased the operating system on an old macbook pro. Nothing is left, not even the base system. What to do?

This was stupid, I know. I didn't mean to do it that way, but the laptop (Macbook Pro intel core2duo 15 in) would freeze, was slow to load, and wouldn't let me partition the drive. I kept getting : unable to unmount when partitioning, or some other partition error. I didn't have much on it, so I know that the harddrive wasn't full or anything. I just had it fixed a few months back to boot with a whole new harddrive and motherboard.
I'm getting these same issues on my newer macbook pro come to think of it. this has all started happening to both laptops this month, only the older macbook pro was running snow leopard and the newer one is running mavericks. Nothing else other than my apple id is in common. i was able to erase macintosh HD and reintall mavericks safely without an issue on the newer laptop, but when i tried doing the very same with the older one, the entire operating system went missing.
Anyway, back to the old laptop. I tried loading linux mint onto it just to get it operational. I read on these boards to use rEFIt to load it. The laptop now has rEFIt when it loads, but it won't install anything or run anything else. Not linux mint, not ubuntu. Nothing.
I do not have any of the original disks. I know i can order them from apple, but I don't want to do that if it isn't going to load it anyway.
So i guess my question now is can I get this thing working again without having to take it to a repair shop for hundreds more? I'm trying to save money and have an extra computer for all of us to share. I'm working on my masters myself and the kids' schools are all about macbooks lately.
Please be gentle with me, I'm only trying to get answers and not insults.
Thank you,
N.

If you're wanting to put Snow Leopard back on your old laptop and you don't have the original DVDs, you should call Apple Support (800-MY-APPLE USA) and order the version of SL that came with your MBP. You'll be charged a small fee.

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I completely erased the operating system on an old macbook pro. Nothing is left, not even the base system. What to do?

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