Reboot means turn power off, turn power on.
Restore means use an older version of your registry (windows settings), and usually fixes programs that stopped working, but often requires reinstallation of programs installed after the restore point.
Recover means reinstall just the windows files. It should leave your documents intact.
Resetting Factory settings means pressing del or f2 or f1 when the system boots, and usually assists in resolving hardware conflicts when you install a new card.
Reinstalling the factory CD most likely reformats your entire drive, including restore points.
Reformat is when you erase the list of all the drive's contents, and, possibly the contents as well as the list. If only the list was erased, try "Norton Disk Doctor" to recreate the list.
A 'backup' is when you copy your files from your hard drive to something other than your hard drive - examples: copy to : ftp site / cd rom / floppy / memory stick / removable disk, etc.
If you've backed up your data somewhere other than drive C:, you should be able to recover it by copying it back. If you saved it somewhere else on drive C, and then did a reformat, you might be up the creek.