It’s possible the drive gets remounted under a different path then (because the old one is still „there“ so to speak).
I.e. „My External Volume“ might become „My External Volume 1“
The tricky bit here is that this is not always visible everywhere across the operating system. Finder might only show it in the Info panel for example. Maybe check in Disk Utility.
TLDR;
Don’t disconnect it without clicking Eject.