Why don't two of my flash drives work?

I am having trouble with two of my USB drives. Both of them are ADATA UV128/32GB USB 3.0 flash drives. I've put external labels on each of them - Flash 3 and Flash 4 - and will refer to them by those names in this thread.

When I put Flash 3 in the USB hub connected to my laptop, I get a dialog that says "Flash 3 - Please insert a disk into Flash 3 (G:)". This makes no sense to me: I put a variety of files on the flash drive some time ago and it seems to me that those files should be listed. Instead it asks me to put a disk *into a flash drive*?? When I right click on Flash 3 in File Explorer, it shows me a long list of options which includes Eject but when I click Eject, it never returns to tell me that it is okay to remove the flash drive. After removing Flash 3, File Explorer still shows Flash 3 as if it is still in the USB hub.

When I put Flash 4 in the USB hub, I get "USB device not recognized"; nothing at all shows up in File Explorer for this flash drive. This flash drive also had ordinary files on it.

When I put Flash 3 and Flash 4 directly into the laptop, nothing at all happens.

Is this recoverable? In other words, can I do something to make these flash drives usable again? It's not even critical if I've lost the files on the drives although ideally I'd like to get them back.

I'm running Windows 10 Home version 21H2.

@RhinoCan, try plugging in the flash drives directly to the laptop without the usb hub. If it does not function
i guess your flash drives are gone.

Driver issue.
It looks much like a problem that your system is not understanding what you plugged in but does recognize some basics about it.
I had a couple years ago a similar situation and all I had to do find the appropriate driver, install it respectively update it and then it worked.
I agree with @sportster there is a possibility of the drives being defective but I think statistically very unlikely that two flash drives died simultaneously, unless of course you put them in the microwave.
In fact long before they go bad you have already indications or even warnings. (Critical count of data block losses)

dorcom said:

Driver issue.
It looks much like a problem that your system is not understanding what you plugged in but does recognize some basics about it.
I had a couple years ago a similar situation and all I had to do find the appropriate driver, install it respectively update it and then it worked.
I agree with @sportster there is a possibility of the drives being defective but I think statistically very unlikely that two flash drives died simultaneously, unless of course you put them in the microwave.
In fact long before they go bad you have already indications or even warnings. (Critical count of data block losses)

What do I do about this presumed driver issue? Where do I get drivers for my flash drives?

jumanji said:

Hi @RhinoCan,

Please do one thing at a time.

Sportster in his post #2 recommended that you plugin the Flash drives directly into the laptop and check. Do this and report what happens for each flash drive 3 and flash drive 4. ( Plug in only one flash drive at a time.). Post the screenshots of any error messages that pop up.

I mentioned what happened in my original question:

When I put Flash 3 and Flash 4 directly into the laptop, nothing at all happens.

That continues to be true.

Did you try to insert the flash drives on another computer?

From the comment section on amazon....

Zoltan the Gypsy

I own maybe 20 of these. Use them to archive things like Windows and Linux installers and live operating systems. Had 5 or 6 fail in use. Drive goes blank and in a Windows machine constantly loops on "please insert..."

ADATA has a tool that will salvage the drive and make it usable again but all data is lost. I'd like to trust these but can't. My archives based on these are probably not reliable. Will try some other brand and give these away. Very disappointing.

Amazon.com

I would replace them all for something more professional. Like the Sandisk Ultra or even Cruzer. From a reliable source.