Is Cubase 12 Pro opening up my drives

When I open up Cubase (12.0.52) the volume crackles the mouse is disengaged and then all my external hard drives open up and my anti virus starts scanning. I’ve shut down my anti virus, to stop it scanning the external hard drives, but the problem still occurs.
Also when downloading the latest updates the downloads only run at Kb/s (it’s taken two days and nights to download some of the latest (12.05.52) in the end I gave up and downloaded it from the web site… Please help I’m totally frustrated…