Restoring to factory settings using cd

cherry76

I want to restore my Samsung Q330 five years old laptop to factory settings as it is getting very slow. Is it better to use the back up cd or use the recovery solution 4 already on the computer? Also I need to copy the files, music and photos and wonder what's best to use. I have an external drive which stopped working after 2 yrs and I am thinking of using usb drive. Any help appreciated!! Thanks

bsod

recovery solution is fastest

a hard disk is more reliable and more capacious than a flash drive, but if that's all you got use it, but 2 copies are better than one, if your machine has space on a d partition, you could store one copy there in addition to an external copy

have you checked disk administrator to see if the external drive shows up