wesodo,  System Restore should not be the problem, something caused the system to crash. Try running the full diagnostics, press F12 at startup and report back any error message.  Since you're the IT Department, maybe remove the Factory image, since you should have disks for the operating system for each system. If no disks were made, the try reading... Windows 7 - IMPORTANT Windows 7 Backup Disks to create  I would guess that when the system crashed, it triggered the problem with system startup. The person should have come to you at that point, but did not. So they tried startup repair, when they were prompted, then it did not work, so then then prompted the system to restore from factory image. If the factory image is removed, then they would have to come to you for help.   Rick 
I have had a up to four cases where users have completely restored their machines back to factory defaults. These users know nothing about computers and seem to be shocked as much as me on the fact that it was restored. By default all windows restore features are disabled by group policy which covers everyone. That means that they are using the Dell restore feature on their machines and unknowingly restoring their systems. It is only happening on the newest Dell machines we have started getting which comes with Windows 7.  The last one was the straw that broke the camels back. She stated that she kept tripping her power strip which caused here system to constantly crash. I am sure that got the restore windows up for here to blindly push. She is denying that she did anything wrong and is now trying to blame us (IT Dept) for the system being reset. Is there a way for the system to automatically restore itself after constant failures or is the user required to push a key to make that happen? With all the questions you have to go through to restore, I can see that there can't possibly be a one push restore to factory defaults. Or am I wrong here? I have found steps to disable the Dell system restore feature and will have to apply this to all new machines. I have searched all over for examples of this happening to others but haven't turned up any "accidental restores". 
Clueless users accidentally restoring their machines to factory settings. How 
is this possible???