when i turn it on it says press DEL to set up and then a black screen appears and says
reebot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key.

What do i do?

just a quick suggestion, make sure there is no floppy disk in the 7.5 drive before starting, your computer may be trying to boot from that.

it doesnt have a floppy disk drive but i does show it is trying to boot from it.

have you got the XP disc in the CD drive and the BIOS set to boot from CD before the hard drive?

i dont not have the xp CD and it is booting from the hard drive first and then the cd drive

when did this start to happen?

have you added any hardware or software recently?

what make is the machine?

well i got it and this guy started using it so he might have installed something then next time tried to use it i couldnt.

the computer is custom made

Set the CD to boot first and then boot the XP CD.

If you do not have one you will need to get one as well as know your Product Key.

You might be able to use the Recovery Console and try the FIXBOOT command.

If this doesn't help you probably need to do a Repair Install if not a Clean Install.

ok thanks man!