USB flash drive shown in My Computer but "not plugged in"

[Vivaporius]

Hello, I have a 4GB Staples flash drive that I bought awhile ago, but has stopped working for some reason. It was working perfectly fine as recently as a few days ago, but now whenever I plug it into my computer, it shows up as a hidden file (a faded icon), and I cannot access it. Whenever I try to open the drive on my laptop, the computer says "Please insert a disk into Removable Disk (G: )", even though it's plugged in clear as day. I've tried going into Device Manager and uninstalling and reinstalling the drive, pushing down on it gently to test if it was a connection issue, and blowing out any dust particles that may have been in the device. But so far, nothing has helped and I'm at a loss as to what to do now. Thank you for any help on the issue.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Sling it & buy a new one (the storage chips inside them can corrupt without any warning).
I always keep two or three spare ones on my desk just in case, and I never ever use them for long term storage.

 

[Vivaporius]

So there is no way to retrieve the data from the flash drive?