What does factory reset do, except setting all user settings to default?

[Thomas Koba]

I know that factory reset resets all user settings and all that. But what does it do "behind the scenes" that makes some fault in the camera go away? I´m not a programmer, but is there any way to explain this to a regular joe? Just curious.

[Michael Hardwick]

Well besides resetting all the camera settings to factory default, it also wipes out any paired relationships with the Redmote. So you have to go through the process of pairing them again, which is a drag.
Its a useful way to take multiple cameras and get them all to a verifiable baseline for sure

[Trent Lillehaugen]

A factory reset clears all the user settings and clears the camera's hardware cache (causing it to rediscover all hardware on the next boot).

If this fixes a problem with the camera it is most likely because the user set a setting incorrectly, inadvertently, or didn't fully understand what the setting meant. In very few cases there have been firmware bugs which would cause a setting to be saved incorrectly -causing a similar problem.