USB mass storage issues

Man, I really need some help here. I’m hitting a wall with my USB mass storage. I finally put together that PC build you guys recommended, which felt great, but things went south once I installed Windows 8.1. Everything seemed fine at first—I didn't even think much of it, just figured it was a temporary glitch that would sort itself out. Then I actually noticed it, so I tried reinstalling the driver, and hey, it worked! Or so I thought. Turns out, every single time I try to move files over to a USB drive, it just refuses to load. I’ve been stuck in this loop where I have to reinstall the driver every single time I want to use a thumb drive. I’ve scoured the web looking for a fix, but honestly, nothing has worked. So, I figured, maybe it’s an OS issue? I jumped ship to Windows 10, thinking that might be the magic fix, but nope—same headache. This time, the computer actually recognizes the USB, but then it just randomly spits out an error saying it can't recognize the device. If I check the Device Manager Button, there’s always that annoying little yellow triangle sitting right next to the USB mass storage entry. I’ve downloaded every latest driver I could find, but nothing sticks. It’s like this endless cycle: I fix it, everything works perfectly for a bit, and then boom—the USB disappears again. I'm seriously at my wit's end here. Any ideas? Sorry for the massive rant.
Pentium G3250
ASUS H81M-DS2
4 GB RAM
Intel HD

Let's take this one step at a time.

1) Is the USB stick itself dead, or is it the port?
2) Are other USB devices working on that computer?
3) If you plug that specific USB stick into a different PC, does it work there?

Are these chipset drivers still worth installing?

Jack Alvarez said:Are these chipset drivers still worth installing?

The drivers are totally current. USB sticks and the ports themselves seem fine, but I'm seeing this annoying little yellow triangle on the USB mass storage driver. When I dig into it, it’s throwing a Code 10 error. Just my luck, I guess.

Give this a shot: head over to the Device Manager Button and expand the Universal Serial bus controllers section. From there, just right-click on every single device listed under Universal Serial bus controllers and select Uninstall to clear them all out. Once you've done that, give your computer a quick restart, then go ahead and install the latest USB drivers from scratch, and hopefully, everything should be running smoothly again!

Jack Alvarez said:Give this a shot: head over to the Device Manager Button and expand the Universal Serial bus controllers section. From there, just right-click on every single device listed under Universal Serial bus controllers and select Uninstall to clear them all out. Once you've done that, give your computer a quick restart, then go ahead and install the latest USB drivers from scratch, and hopefully, everything should be running smoothly again!

I can't really do all that, though, since my mouse is plugged in via USB.