How to identify the purpose of a partition?

Solution 1:

2GB seems pretty small for a recovery partition. We're talking about Windows here, which comes on a 4GB DVD (or two). 10GB is a more likely size for a recovery partition, especially if it contains pre-installed apps (or crapwear) from the manufacturer.

Best guess is that the 2GB partition may be some sort of stripped-down recovery OS, and the 10GB partition contains the data to be restored (the factory image). I'm basing this unscientifically off this forum post about a Dell computer.

Solution 2:

It's possible that it's a diagnostic utility of some sort that the manufacturer put on the hard drive as a convenience. Another possibility is that it is used as an addition to the system restore partition for extras such as drivers or junkware that the manufacturer wants to have pre-installed when you restore the OS.

Since it's an unknown partition, you can attempt to boot a Linux LiveCD and have gparted see if it can tell what type of partition it is. If not, Clonezilla has an option to do byte-for-byte clones that can ensure that it will remain intact should you wish to restore the disk to its original state. I added that since you posted a question about cloning just a short while ago.