What is "spinrite"

SpinRite is a computer program for scanning magnetic data storage devices such as hard disks, recovering data from them and refreshing their surfaces. The first version was released in 1987. Version 6.0, still current , was released in 2004. SpinRite is run from a bootable medium (floppy disc, optical disc, bootable external storage device such as a USB stick) on a PC-compatible computer. Spinrite uses its own operating system and ignores any boot loader or file system structure that may be on the drive being examined.