The original product was for low-level formatting and checking of WD, MFM, and RLL (pre IDE) drives where the drives either had or could alter the magnetic arrangement of tracks and sectors. For example, taking an MFM drive from an MFM controller and placing it on an RLL controller, DOS wouldn't be able to read, write, or format it. However, SpinRite could low-level reformat it to work and it would be both faster and a higher capacity (thanks to the RLL controller).
> last time I used it, was painfully slow
Yep. That's the breaks of format, write, and read every single sector while waiting for it to come around at least 3 times on a 3600 RPM HDD.
> last time I used it, was painfully slow
Yep. That's the breaks of format, write, and read every single sector while waiting for it to come around at least 3 times on a 3600 RPM HDD.