LOL, so I decided to spit ball too, it was frustratingly stupid resolve to this issue. after days of this. talking to WD who said call Microsoft… i though i have powered everything down and on again disconnected and reconnected the external drive and still no dice…
ah but i have a second drive in the usb slot of the main one. why dont i try ejecting it, rebooting one drive at a time… FFS everything starts to work again… no credentials needed. no issues finding the drives…
so simple it was stupid.
i cant understand why the two external drives connected as they have been for 7 years with many power failures or other such things. would suddenly be an issue now but i guess if this happens again i know to boot one at a time
thanks for the help 
