Check this out:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=578742

I used SpinRite etensively in my Windows days and was both very
impressed and very satisfied with it. I didn't know it had now been
made to work with Linux but, from my experiences with Gibson Research, I
would have no hesitation in saying that, if they say it'll work with
Linux formatted drives, then it will, without problem.

SpinRite does not run from within the OS - in order to do the kind of
in-depth analysis and recovery that it's capable of, it needs totally
free and unfettered access to the HDD. For this reason, you need to
shut down your OS and boot from a floppy to run SpinRite. It can take a
lot of time, especially the first time you use it - the first time I ran
it on a 4GB drive, it took nearly 12 hours on a 750MHz Celeron - but it
is a truly impressive tool and I thoroughly and heartily recommend it to
everyone. Usual disclaimer - I have no connection to the company or any
of its employees; I am just a very, very satisfied user.

thanks, im hoping my new box will boot from cd out of the box. i also hav sr on
floppy in case i cant figure out how 2 change boot order. im guessing that bios
setup would b the same as m$ box?

thanks, will try & ck forum 1st. my 1st linux box coming next wk. i always hav
run sr right away 2 ck disc. from what i hav read so far, i will need firewall,
av so i dont send infected files, flash & firefox ad block. that should give me
weeks of fun!

I am wondering what you mean by boot order. BIOS settings are the same whether
you are using Linux or Windows.

If you mean in the bootloader, grub, it is an easy fix. You can just edit it in
a text editor. You need to do this as root - try "sudo gedit
/boot/grub/menu.lst" from a terminal session and enter your password. From there
it is simply a matter of making the changes to the default line near the top and
saving.

If it says default 0, you can change it to the number that corresponds to the
one that you want to boot. They will be listed in order. The only tricky thing
is to count from zero, not one. For example if you want Windows to be your
default and it is the fourth OS in the list then you change it to default 3
because the first one is zero, the second is 1, etc.

More detailed instructions can be found here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GrubHowto/ChangeDefaultOS

sorry, didnt explain enough. want to boot from cd. i will have only 1 os. since
u said bios is same, i shouldnt hav any problems.