SATA drive validation

I am trying to validate a drive that supports secure erase in multiple formats. The format is specified in a vendor specific ATA-8 packet. Our technician has solved the issue quite ingeniously by using the protocol tester drivemaster to create a packet "close" to the one needed and then using the error injection function of a SATA analyzer to modify the packet to the correct format. Now the customer is asking for a Linux utility so that they can test the functionality. I would of course prefer a more straight forward method to test vendor specific commands in the future as well. In general I was wondering if there is a utility in Linux that I could use for drive validation on drives by exercising the protocol directly (ATA, SATA etc.). If this type of support is built into a scripting language (python or perl etc.) then maybe just a little advice as to what language has the best support under Linux for this type of effort. That would save me time researching the best path to take. Thanks, Brian