Win10 Updates corrupting Partition Table external USB HDD's - to RAW

This is a recurring problem. I am looking for suggestions on:
1. how to prevent this problem from recurring.
2. how to repair my partition tables without formatting my HDD's.

Background:

I run a Dell XPS-15 9550, internal 512gb SDD.
My data is photographs and video files.
I use external HDD's via a 2-Bay USB dock.
See additional system details below.

Problem:

On some Windows updates, my external USB HDD becomes RAW after restart.

This problem has occurred on and off for about two years now, I would say since Windows 1803. It took me several occurrences to figure out the problem was tied to Windows updates. Once I did, only a few months ago, I called Microsoft and the fix was to update drivers. From what the agent said, Windows was installing conflicting drivers on update. The problem recurred three more times, and each time, I could go in and update the drivers (USB Mass Storage Controller), and that fixed the issue. My drive showed up as NTSF again and I was able to access my data.

On Saturday (Sep 21, I started my computer to find my two HDD's inaccessible: both had been turned RAW. I checked the update history and a Definition update had been applied on the 20th. When I tried to update the drivers, the disks remained RAW. I called Microsoft and they tried several different ways of updating the drivers without success. Finally, they started a Chdsk on one of the HDD's to see if that would work. Chkdsk completed successfully, but the disk was still RAW.

I have not run any other process on the drives, not wanting to make things worse.
I have most of my data backed up, but I don't want to plug those in, in fear that an update might come in and corrupt those HDD's.

This problem has occurred too many times to be a coincidence. I have seen other similar references to this problem on other forum, but few solutions, other than tools trying to fix the partition table and data recovery solutions.

A perfect-storm of hardware and software?

I can only conclude that I happen to have a very particular combination of hardware and software that lets a bug corrupt the partition table on external HDD's. It doesn't seem to be a prevalent problem, so there is little chance that Microsoft will take care of it.

SO:

I am looking for any suggestions on how to make changes to my system to prevent this from happening again?

- The problem ALWAYS occurs on external HDD's plugged in on a USB dock.
- It occurred on several (at least 3) different docks, different brands of docks.
- ALL my HDD's are WD's, but some were Green, others were Red. HDD's ranged from 2TB to 8TB. so that might be one of the constants...
- Some of the HDD's were as old as two years, and as new as two weeks.
- The last occurrence had two HDD's in the dock: one was brand new (less than two weeks old), the other was about one year old. Both turned RAW.
- The drives do not make any clickling or strange noise.
- In earlier occurrences, after running data recovery on the drives, I have reformatted and they work fine.
- The problem has NEVER (yet) happened to external HDD's that are "encased", like MyPassport, or other such drives.

Plugging the dock in another Windows PC, with the drives - I could see the drives, but they also showed up as RAW.

I am considering setting up a NAS Raid drive in place of my USB-dock, which would be a better solution. I do not know whether a similar problem might occur with that system.

My specs:

XPS-15 9550
6th Gen i7-6700 GHzHQ Quad Core (6M Cache)
16GB (2 x 8GB) 2133MHZ DDR4 Memory
512 GB SSD
NVIDIA GTX960M video card 2GB DDR5
15.6" UltraHD 4K monitor

2-Bay dock: Orico 6228US3-C (Capacity up to 8TB)

Windows 10 Home 64bit
Recent updates:

Update that created the last occurrence of the problen:
Definition Update:
Security Intelligence Update for Windows Defender Antivirus - KB2267602 Version 1.201.1812.0

Note: There were four new Definition Updates since, but no HDD were connected via USB.

General recent updates:

2019-09 Security Update for Adobe Flash Player for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x64based Systems (KB4516115) Installed 9/11/2019

2019-09 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x64 (KB4514359) Installed 9/11/2019

2019-09 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x64-based Systems (KB4515384) Installed 9/11/2019

I can provide the full list of updates if necessary:
The 1903 update was first installed on my computer in June
And it created the problem.
....
This update created one occurrence of the problem 2019-05 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x64 (KB44495620) Installed 6/6/2019

HDD spec
The two recent HDD's that were corrupted:
WD RED SATA 6Gb/s NXHA500 NASware 3.0 8TB
WD Red SATA / 64MB Cache WD40EFRX NASware 3.0

Please let me know if you need any additional information or specifications on my system.

I would appreciate:
- Any suggestions of what component could be the culprit,
- Any suggestions on how to update my system to avoid a recurrence.
- recommendations on how to attempt to repair my partition tables without formatting the drives.

Many thanks in advance.