File Explorer Win 11 Pro

2nd time this has happened.....I click on "This PC"....I have 3 external drives...I click on one of them and the system freezes...about 4 months ago had the same issue....all the tech person could was to re-install win 11...he tried everything....
See below regarding my desktop pc...

Operating System
Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Processor
RAM
32.0GB
Motherboard
LENOVO 3753 (U3E1) 38 °C
Graphics
VX238 (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (Lenovo) 29 °C
Storage
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-08WN4A1 (SATA ) 27 °C
953GB SAMSUNG MZVL21T0HCLR-00BL7 (Unknown (SSD))
4657GB Western Digital WD Game Drive USB Device (USB (SATA) (SSD)) 38 °C
3725GB Western Digital WD Elements 2621 USB Device (USB (SATA) (SSD)) 38 °C
1862GB Western Digital WD Elements 25A2 USB Device (USB (SATA) ) 35 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

Disconnect all connected External devices like your external hard drives and try again.

Use crystaldiskinfo utility to view health report all attached hard drives.


Also scan all hard drivers for errors.

If those externals are permanently connected, excluding the drives from being indexed may well solve your freeze problem.
I would assign each of them a permanent drive letter though just to be sure the drive letter does not change.