If a PC is taken back to factory settings, and in the process?

Ideally you would normally do this before you do the factory restore - Normally photos are stored in my documents or your desktop click on the use, library and there will be folders for documents music photos and videos (windows 7). You should save all of these to a memory stick before proceeding, if you try to do it after it will be too late and your photos may have been wiped

If it asked this during the factory restore it should give you a choice of destination where to save them, make a note of this and your photos should be there. If you can't remember most photos are stored in .mpg format and if you do a search you may find them. If it didn't give you a choice of destination then this implies you should have aborted the restore and save the photos first

HTH

David

Where ever you saved them at, should have been on an external drive of some sort. If you saved them on the PC they are more then likely gone, as the reset to factory settings reformats the hard drive and reinstalls windows and all factory programs to make it like new.