I'm trying to make a version of a Symantec Ghost boot disk that will automatically check the system model number, and choose which NIC driver is needed for that model. I have everything working except for getting the actual model #. I need to be able to get it even if the hard drive has been completely wiped, since this is running from a dos boot disk.
I've tried several commands - wmic, systeminfo - all of which work fine within windows, but I need one that can run in dos mode, and apparently these can't.
Any ideas on utilities and/or commands that could help me out?
You may be able to write a small piece of code and call the BIOS API directly.
See http://www.cs.ubbcluj.ro/~forest/HtmlFolder/AC/NG/ng897c4.html for an (ancient) example:
INT 15h, C0h (192) Return System Configuration many
Reports the machine model number, sub-model number, BIOS revision
level, and other hardware-specific attributes.
On entry: AH C0h
Returns: Carry Set if error, else cleared
AH 0
ES:BX Pointer to a System Descriptor Table
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes: This service is not available for the PC, PCjr, XT
dated 11/08/82, and the AT dated 1/10/84. Use the
return state of AH to determine if the service is
returning valid information.
System Descriptor Table
Description Length (byte) Value
Table length 1 8
System model number 1 ?
Sub-model number 1 ?
Bios Revision level 1 ?
Feature Information 1 ?
Reserved 4 0
This is the wikipedia list of all calls, and I'm pretty sure there will be a function in a compiler of choice (e.g Turbo C etc) that does this too.