No signal when accessing external hard drive

Claus, this fixed my issue!! I'm very grateful! I just would like to understand more context.

1) All Xbox games, internal storage and external HD, were working before. Does this mean that some recent update enabled HDR by default whereas earlier it was not on?

2) Why did all the internal games work? In other words, why were they able to work in HDR but the external HD games cannot?

Hello bluesjumper! I'm Claus, an Independent Microsoft Community Consultant for Xbox! Glad to be able to help you!

Based on your report, if you try to play a game, the console will go to a black screen? If that is it, then it could be that you have an issue with HDR. Check if HDR10 is enabled by going to Settings > General > TV & display options > Video modes. There, uncheck Allow HDR10 if it is enabled and then try to play a game again afterwards. You can also try to decrease the output resolution.

Does your external hard drive have a usb port as we as an external power supply or does the Usb power the hard drive itself? Secondly, is it set to instant on or power saving? There have been reports of problems with externally powered drives not getting
or hearing the go to sleep signal or signal which puts it into standby when console shuts down and therefore stays on. Some will go into standby but not power on again after console is powered back on. What drive are you using?

my Xbox works fine without the external hard drive but when I connect the hard drive it says no signal being received tries to start but won't used to work fine before the last update why is this?

Do you have any electronics near the console, maybe an external hard drive or something else that might interfere with the signal? I had a similar issue, when one of my external hard drives was too close to the connect button on the console, and it wouldn't connect to the controller. Once I moved it, it reconnected.