I am trying to interpret a DOSFLASH command, as part of an effort to flash the firmware on a Blu-ray drive. DOSFLASH is a low-level tool whose continued relevance is discussed in e.g., a MakeMKV post.

That post also presents the DOSFLASH command of interest here. The command looks like this:

Comments preceding that command explain that running the DOSFLASH tool in FreeDOS produces a brief guide to the full DOSFLASH command syntax.

Some of the codes in that DOSFLASH command require knowledge of the computer's hardware. In particular, to modify that DOSFLASH command to fit my situation, I need to know the port to which the command should be sent (e.g., F0D0), whether the drive is master or slave, its MTK type (e.g., 0x70), whether the flash type is serial SST, and size of flash chip in number of banks.

I am running DOSFLASH in FreeDOS, booted from USB on an oldish (c. 2008, Vista-compatible) PC. Unfortunately, I am not finding that common DOS/Windows ways of interrogating hardware (see e.g., SuperUser) work in FreeDOS. I would be interested in suggestions for a FreeDOS-compatible system information tool.

There is also the problem that I am not entirely sure what all those specific hardware items are. If there are suitable hardware-info Linux tools bootable from a live CD compatible with this older system, that would be a good second-best.

I'm here because there doesn't seem to be a FreeDOS forum of any weight. There's probably an answer somewhere in the FreeDOS listserv, except that I still might not understand it.

I am posting in the Software forum rather than Hardware, partly because I'm looking for command line guidance and partly because I'm not sure I'm a hardware guy.

"The "dosflash" method described in this thread is now obsolete and is NOT recommended.
Please use "official patched" flashers with "clean images" for downgrade."
https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17058

Can we assume you want to make it friendly?

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the official patched flashers and the clean images. That's certainly one way to proceed.

I guess I should emphasize that my question here is not primarily about DOSFlash. I'm asking for suggestions for hardware information tools, preferably in FreeDOS, alternately in Linux, that will help me enter those DOSFlash parameters.

If you don't know DOSFlash, or don't have any ideas for hardware info tools, no worries; maybe someone else does. Or if there's a better forum for the question, by all means point me in the right direction.

Not sure what your question means, "Can we assume you want to make it friendly?"

The bit you posted about dosflash and whether the device is master or slave seems to refer to an IDE interface, and no modern machines use IDE. That should give you a clue to the hardware age the tool supports.

Don't be stuck on dosflash but rather switch to something more recent that can actually support the bluray device. I have only seen sata connected or usb connected bluray drives, since IDE has gone the way of CDs and DVDs used for data storage. I am not even sure IDE would handle the data transfer rate required for bluray.

In this case, the interface is SATA. So apparently I'll need to know what input will work for DOSFlash on a SATA system.

When you refer to "something more recent," are you saying you know of a more recent low-level tool that does what DOSFlash does?

I'm not too worried about the age of the software or hardware. I've seen older. I started working with DOS in 1983.

Yours is the second warning that I am on the wrong track. I have been warned. Now if we can get to the issue I posed, that would be good.

My response was based on this that you initially posted above.
I have no experience with the dosflash tool, nor have I used freeDOS, but "whether the drive is master or slave" definitely refers to IDE drive positions on the controller cable. If that is required then the tool is definitely not for the current generation of machines.