USB drive not being recognized

To start with, maybe try plugging it into a different computer just to see if it'll pick it up there—or even just try switching to a different USB port on the same machine.

Yeah, same deal here. Only difference is, both her and me got that little "processing..." message on the first try—you know, the one that says something is happening and might take a few minutes. It’d pop up for maybe a minute or two and then just... poof. Gone. Now a buddy of mine just tried it, and the second he plugs in the 🤣, it shows up for a split second before vanishing into thin air.

I gotta try this at home, though. I'll hit you guys back tonight once I can get to it. Everything's been happening at the office today, and they've been setting up some new workstations for us. I don't think that's actually the issue, though, since my other thumb drives are working just fine.

So, it looks like the issue is actually with the USB drive itself.

I don't want to start a whole new thread here, but I'm running into this weird issue with my 16GB Adata thumb drive... whenever I take it somewhere to get some stuff printed, I can't even open it, which is super frustrating because I've tried at a few different shops already, and they all just tell me it needs to be formatted.
At home, everything works perfectly fine—I’ve got a laptop running Windows 8.1, a desktop on Windows 7, and a tablet with Windows 8.1, and the drive works flawlessly on all of them. I even went ahead and formatted it myself and ran a full virus scan, but as soon as I show up at the print shop, I'm stuck with the exact same error message again. Does anyone actually know what's going on with this...

It isn't your fault; nobody can be expected to know everything.
The blame lies with whatever fool programmed those machines. They clearly didn't account for the fact that not everyone is an expert on file systems like FAT32, FAT, NTFS, or exFAT. They should have simply built universal compatibility or at least included the essentials like FAT32 and NTFS.
If they had any sense, they would have printed the required USB format in large letters right on the device. It's like a gas station pump—you don't need a manual to know what's coming out of the nozzle.
Since the world is full of incompetent people, you'll just have to help yourself.
When you go to format the drive, don't just click through blindly. Stop and check the formatting options; leave everything else at default.
If it says NTFS, switch it to FAT32, format it, and then move your files over.
I haven't used one of these specific printing machines myself, but I'd bet 99% that this is where the error lies.
Best,

And they’re all printing from computers there too... so basically, I walk in, Windows installs all the drivers automatically, and then suddenly it just says it can't open the files. Then some guy actually has the nerve to tell me I should just toss it because it’s "broken"... which is hilarious because every single thumb drive I've ever owned was formatted as FAT32, including this one, and I haven't changed my formatting habits once in my life. Honestly, I have no clue what kind of absolute chaos they're running on those computers over there...
I've been testing this specific drive on a ton of different machines that my buddies bring over for me to fix, and I've never run into a single issue before. Like, specifically, I went to two different print shops—in the first one, nothing happened, and in the second one, it worked on one computer after a few tries, but then when I went back to that same shop later but used a different station, it wouldn't work again. But then, as soon as I get back home, everything opens up perfectly and I can copy everything off the drive without any drama 🤷

Well, I learned something new today. Apparently, they print directly from the computer, which means they’re running 100% Windows. Is it any wonder they run into issues? Why would they?
Windows remembers every drive that’s been plugged in, and that leads to conflicts with drive letters and all that nonsense.
Who on earth is going to explain that to a local print shop?
Maybe giving the flash drive a specific name helps? I don't know.
Or perhaps try assigning it a different drive letter? From Z: down to D:—though you shouldn't use D: since it's likely already taken. You'd have to work backward through the alphabet.
If a print shop actually knew what they were doing, they'd check which drive letters are occupied and use a simple script or batch file to wipe the USB cache every single time.
Honestly, why bother even discussing this with people who are clearly incompetent?

USB ports wear out eventually. It's a fact. You either need to buy new ones or just use a short cable while it still works, then buy a new cable every year or so. Somewhere along the line, it happens.

Best,

Or, honestly, just upload the document to Dropbox or OneDrive—or even just email it to yourself. Then you can just download and print it once you actually get there. It saves you all the hassle with a Universal Serial Bus, plus you don't have to worry about picking up some random virus from their computer. I mean, people bring all kinds of sketchy drives to these places.