That's a false statement. LibreELEC will auto-update to a new minor release, e.g. 12.0.0 to 12.0.1, but never to a new major release, e.g. 11.0.0 to 12.0.0 or 12.0.0 to 12.2.0; so either someone manually updated using the LE settings add-on, or manually updated by downloading the newer release image file to the /storage/.update folder and rebooting.
In LE 12.0+ the NTFS filesystem drivers changed from the userspace NTFS-3G driver to a native in-kernel driver and this is sensitive towards a dirty filesystem state; typically caused by not ejecting the drive cleanly in Windows before moving over to the RPi or by hard power pulls on the RPi. Linux will not mount a dirty filesystem to prevent data loss. Unlike native Linux filesystems like EXT4 which can be checked/fixed on boot using "fsck" there are currently no equivalent tools so clearing a dirty filesystem state can only be done on Windows using chkdsk.exe.
So, try clearing the dirty state on Windows first. If this doesn't work something else is up/bad/broken with the drive and we'll need to see the system log (not Kodi log) to look for error messages. If it does work but the issue keeps repeating, you can revert to the NTFS-3G driver by installing the NTFS-3G driver add-on from the LE add-on repo.
My libreelec OS was set to auto update and I saw it on the TV screen saying it was updating Libreelec. When I booted the system it started updating on its own. Nothing else was done by me to run an update. I have no idea what version it updated to that didn't work although I assume it was the latest 12 version loaded by the RasPi windows app SD installer or what the previous version was. So it was not a false statement. All I know is the previous version I had installed worked.
As far as a dirty drive I ran scandisk/repair on the hard drive on my PC numerous times and it still wouldn't mount the hard drive. So I'm not sure I buy this dirty drive excuse I have been reading about. Windows scandisk showed no errors or problems anyway. I never just pull a drive without removing it cleanly as you suggested.
Thirdly I used the exact same Micro SD card and loaded an older version of libreelec 10.0.4 and low and behold the drive is now mounted and visible again. So in my mind the only issue here was the software tanking the ability to mount my external 3.0 USB hard drive automatically anymore in the new version. Everything is working as it should now so I am done here and thanks everyone for the help comments.