It only returned 1 module with that grep request.

deven@Galaxy1:~$ sudo lsmod | grep sr
msr 16384 0

Try loading modules sr_mod and sd_mod either as root or via sudo.

modprobe sr_mod

modprobe sd_mod

And see of there is now a /dev/sr0 device.

SWEET!!! I think we found the underlining problem...

deven@Galaxy1:~$ sudo modprobe sr_mod
[sudo] password for deven:
modprobe: FATAL: Module sr_mod not found in directory /lib/modules/5.16.15


It is missing this module. that's a move in the right direction. any quick tips on how to resolve that? I can open the google files if needed, but I think we may have a winner why its not work.

On my debian 11 system with 5.10 kernel I have the modules loading. Some are specific to a SATA drive but here they are:

sg, cdrom, sd_mod, sr_mod and scsi_mod

What version are you running? sid, testing or stable (Bullseye) etc?

Running Bullseye Stable. I am looking at maybe the 5.16.15 kernel may not have been upgraded correctly. I am looking at maybe trying a prior kernel install and see if I have the same problem. I am wondering if when the kernel was updated. we may have failed to pull all the modules with it. I am planning a restart now and will see how thing work back on the 5.10 kernel. I'll keep you all posted. Sorry for the rat race if that's the case.

Thanks for all the help guys. It's very much appreicated. the problem is with the 5.16 kernel. the 5.10 kernel works fine.

deven@Galaxy1:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 931.5G 0 part /media/deven/162f3afa-7e7c-44c6-922e-da320789be9c
sdb 8:16 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 0 931.5G 0 part /media/deven/14691d53-4aac-4e36-8a87-010f91c828d9
sdc 8:32 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sdc1 8:33 0 931.5G 0 part /media/deven/8d6274c7-915b-4ad6-9399-5983e0124fef
sdd 8:48 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sdd1 8:49 0 931.5G 0 part
sde 8:64 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sde1 8:65 0 512M 0 part /boot/efi
├─sde2 8:66 0 464.3G 0 part /media/deven/9a6ca8c8-7bd2-4a4a-bb80-a09473c32ab3
│ /
└─sde3 8:67 0 976M 0 part [SWAP]
sr0 11:0 1 559M 0 rom /media/deven/DRVRS & GOODIES
sr1 11:1 1 6.7G 0 rom /media/deven/Planet 51

I should have thought about trying the prior install to see if I still had the same problem. Sorry for all the hassle. Again, Thanks for putting up with the madness.

More of a workaround than a solution.
I'd be interested about the kernel versions, can you post
(the command in the attachment, stupid cloudflare won't let me post it)
for both?

Attached Thumbnails

 

the problem with the 5.16.15 kernel is it didn't install or was missing the sr_mod module. My guess is when we updated the kernel, we either didn't port all the modules over, or the kernel update was incomplete. Rolling it back to 5.10, while it is a work around, confirmed the problem to be the missing module. I am looking into removing the 5.16 kernel and attempting another upgrade to the 5.16.

Linux Galaxy1 5.10.0-14-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.113-1 (2022-04-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Linux Galaxy1 5.16.15 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun May 29 15:27:21 EDT 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Well that's why you're asking others for help, no?

Yes, we established that.

Sorry, I didn't quite get that. How would you "port modules over", or how could you've left a kernel update incomplete? On a package manager as strict as Debian Stable's?
Not saying it isn't possible, but you certainly would've noticed.

These are two very different kernels. Not only the kernel versions, but also one is PREEMPT, the other isn't. One says -amd64 at the end, the other doesn't (could be meaningless though). And lastly and most importantly, 5.16.15 is not in Debian stable repos or backports. How did you install it?

Also, my currently running 5.10. kernel is this one:
and has been for many days now.
Can you not use the normal linux-image-generic package, which would have updated to 5.10.0-15 by now?

If you want to get to the bottom of this, show us:

sorry, I was not trying to be rude. I often type things out for my thinking process. I see where you are going with the Kernel differences. My friend actually did the kernel install. I didn't see the process he used. so I am unsure where he got the 5.16.15 from. My knowledge of linux is still on the new side as I hadn't had much exposure to it. just used it from time to time in my work. I'm far from knowing how to upgrade a kernel. My friend knows a lot more about it then I do, but this CD issue had him stumped. What also had him stumped was the fact he did everything the same way on mine (Likely he missed something) that he did on his and didn't have half of the problems I have had. We only did the kernel upgrade as he thought it would resolve an issue I had with a drawing tablet. which after we did all the upgrade and stuff to the kernel, we discovered the overly generic made in darkwoods of china tablet was incompatible with anything other than windows and even then it had issues. I should have tried it on his linux system first before I even did the kernel upgrade on mine. it never worked on his either. so that brings us to here. sorry for the long draw out explanation. Again It's part of my thought process. I assume you would like me to run that command form the 5.6 kernel and not the 5.10 kernel correct? I'll post my results in a bit. Again, Please don't take many of my comments as being rude or dismissive. I know many times I am viewed like this while posting messages. my apologies.

Here is the output from both the 5.16 kernel and the 5.10 kernel. I am unsure why it even shows a 5.18.0-1 kernel. this is news to me. I also see no mention of the 5.16 kernel. so there is clearly something messed up.

Using 5.16

deven@Galaxy1:~$ sudo apt update
apt search linux-image | grep -A1 installed
cat /etc/os-release
Hit:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian bullseye InRelease
Hit:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates InRelease
Hit:1 https://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian stable-buster InRelease
Hit:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid InRelease
Hit:5 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable InRelease
Get:6 https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease [2,640 B]
Err:6 https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease
The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9E5738E866C5E6B2
Reading package lists... Done
W: http://download.mono-project.com/rep...ter/InRelease: Key is stored in legacy trusted.gpg keyring (/etc/apt/trusted.gpg), see the DEPRECATION section in apt-key(8) for details.
W: GPG error: https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9E5738E866C5E6B2
E: The repository 'https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

linux-headers-5.10.0-14-amd64/now 5.10.113-1 amd64 [installed,local]
Header files for Linux 5.10.0-14-amd64
--
linux-headers-5.18.0-1-amd64/now 5.18.2-1 amd64 [installed,local]
Header files for Linux 5.18.0-1-amd64
--
linux-headers-5.18.0-2-amd64/unstable,unstable,now 5.18.5-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
Header files for Linux 5.18.0-2-amd64
--
linux-image-5.10.0-14-amd64/now 5.10.113-1 amd64 [installed,local]
Linux 5.10 for 64-bit PCs (signed)
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

Using 5.10

deven@Galaxy1:~$ sudo apt update
apt search linux-image | grep -A1 installed
cat /etc/os-release
[sudo] password for deven:
Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid InRelease
Hit:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian bullseye InRelease
Hit:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable InRelease
Hit:5 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates InRelease
Hit:1 https://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian stable-buster InRelease
Get:6 https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease [2,640 B]
Err:6 https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease
The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9E5738E866C5E6B2
Reading package lists... Done
W: http://download.mono-project.com/rep...ter/InRelease: Key is stored in legacy trusted.gpg keyring (/etc/apt/trusted.gpg), see the DEPRECATION section in apt-key(8) for details.
W: GPG error: https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9E5738E866C5E6B2
E: The repository 'https://ramses.hjramses.com/deb/makemkv bullseye InRelease' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

linux-headers-5.10.0-14-amd64/now 5.10.113-1 amd64 [installed,local]
Header files for Linux 5.10.0-14-amd64
--
linux-headers-5.18.0-1-amd64/now 5.18.2-1 amd64 [installed,local]
Header files for Linux 5.18.0-1-amd64
--
linux-headers-5.18.0-2-amd64/unstable,unstable,now 5.18.5-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
Header files for Linux 5.18.0-2-amd64
--
linux-image-5.10.0-14-amd64/now 5.10.113-1 amd64 [installed,local]
Linux 5.10 for 64-bit PCs (signed)
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

I don't think you were being rude. OTOH, I hope you don't perceive me as being anything similar, either.

You are not running Debian Stable (11) anymore - you, or, I suspect, your friend - turned your Debian install into a Frankendebian by mixing stable sources (bullseye) with unstable sources (sid, unstable).
Recovering from that is hard, I'm sorry to say. I hope you didn't run 'apt upgrade' since this happened.
First of all, you should remove the unstable/sid repos from all files in /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/.

Oh and please use CODE tags for command output and code (see my signature).

Oh yes, Apt update / apt upgrade has been run many times since while working on attempting to resolve this issue. It would also explain how he managed to install such and odd kernel.

I'm still unclear how his system runs without issue while mine is pooched. But then, he may not be seeing the issues as he pretty much just uses it for gaming while I use mine for a large number of other tasks.

I can remove the repositories, that's not an issue, and while you say it is difficult to reverse, It sounds like a good learning experience. I would completely understand if it is not something that can be easily explained.

After learning what has happened I have been thinking about just reinstalling the OS completely. my question is, is there a repair function similar to what Microsoft has so I don't have to do a complete format and reinstall? Or am I just looking at killing it and starting over?

Exactly. There's a similar statement on the page I linked.
There is a chance that your friend actually knew how to do this and set up apt pinning. But somehow I don't think so.

Read the page I linked in my previous post, with outgoing links.
Do some web searches.
Then decide for yourself if you think you can tackle it.

If that has been set up, then yes, there is. Look through your desktop if there's a backup utility, and if it started doing backups already.
Also look at systemctl output (just enter 'systemctl' in a terminal) to find out about automated backups.