Formating RE: Volume

Help…My Macbook Pro downloaded the latest updates, which corrupted my data on my external WD My Passport for Mac drive, where all my files have been converted into a READ ONLY format. I was able to move my files onto another WD Passport; however, now I am encountering error messages when attempting to save a file that reads…“(file description) is on a volume that does not support permanent version storage”… Can anyone tell how to address this issue in layman’s terms?

This might be a Partition Format error and would be check after reformatting in macOS Extended File Format before taking the backup of important files from My Passport.