[lafester]

Recovery is one level up from bootloader. I'm not sure what stock recovery can do as I have never really played with it. I assume it is only a factory reset type of deal. Clockwork is a modified recovery utility that allows you to flash custom roms, kernels, make backups, factory reset etc. I'm sure there is a lot more it can do but those are the basics. obviously you need root in order to load the modified recovery.