External Hard Drives Not Showing Up After Latest Mac Update

Ever since I updated my MacBook last night to the latest Big Sur update (version 11.3.1), I have been unable to access any of my external hard drives. I know the issue is not the hard drive cables because I have tested them on other computers (which are not Apple products) I have tried restarting my Mac multiple times as well as running first aid and checking the boxes to make sure my external hard drives appear on my desktop. A file did appear on my MacBook after the update was successfully installed titled Relocated Items. When I click on it, there is another file named Configuration along with a message from Apple informing me as to what Configuration Files are.

It says:

"During the last macOS upgrade or file migration, some of your files couldn’t be moved to their new locations. This folder contains these files.

Configuration files

These configuration files were modified or customized by you, by another user, or by an app. The modifications may be incompatible with the recent macOS upgrade. The modified files are in the Configuration folder, organized in subfolders named for their original locations.

To restore any of the custom configurations, compare your modifications with the configuration changes made during the macOS upgrade and combine them when possible.

Configuration files with the suffix "system_default" were edited or customized, but the changes were allowed to remain installed. The system_default version of the file is provided to demonstrate what the Apple supplied version of this file would look like. It is recommended that you compare the two and evaluate whether you wish to integrate any changes Apple may have made to the default version."

Does this new update have anything to do with why I am unable to access my external hard drives? I'm tempted to schedule an appointment with my local Apple store tomorrow but want to make sure I've tried everything possible on my own before I do.