You can use efetch
to query for metadata from SRA but you can't use efetch
to download sequence data.
for example you can do this:
$ efetch -db sra -id SRR23292069 -format runinfo
Run,ReleaseDate,LoadDate,spots,bases,spots_with_mates,avgLength,size_MB,AssemblyName,download_path,Experiment,LibraryName,LibraryStrategy,LibrarySelection,LibrarySource,LibraryLayout,InsertSize,InsertDev,Platform,Model,SRAStudy,BioProject,Study_Pubmed_id,ProjectID,Sample,BioSample,SampleType,TaxID,ScientificName,SampleName,g1k_pop_code,source,g1k_analysis_group,Subject_ID,Sex,Disease,Tumor,Affection_Status,Analyte_Type,Histological_Type,Body_Site,CenterName,Submission,dbgap_study_accession,Consent,RunHash,ReadHash
SRR23292069,2023-10-10 12:21:24,2023-10-08 03:56:36,2759641173,629198187444,0,228,205294,,https://sra-downloadb.be-md.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sos1/sra-pub-zq-38/SRR023/23292/SRR23292069/SRR23292069.lite.1,SRX19235309,GSM7016416,OTHER,other,GENOMIC,PAIRED,0,0,ILLUMINA,Illumina NovaSeq 6000,SRP420328,PRJNA929977,3,929977,SRS16639721,SAMN32979125,simple,9606,Homo sapiens,GSM7016416,,,,,,,no,,,,,COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,SRA1582859,,public,2763C5E41A367906FEFC2A1BF8B5175B,062E01F712571F514888E2A144184C19
There is an embedded URL in the metadata above (https://sra-downloadb.be-md.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sos1/sra-pub-zq-38/SRR023/23292/SRR23292069/SRR23292069.lite.1 ) that you could use to download some data. Looking at the name in the link this data is not completely original since it appears to be in SRA lite format (LINK).
You don't need to use sratoolkit
exclusively since in most cases it is possible to download fastq data from ENA. lieven.sterck has linked a tool that can generate those links.
not directly via efetch but do have a look at https://sra-explorer.info/ , great tool to get the necessary cmdlines to download data(sets)
you can use sratool kit that works.