Recover USB flash drive from "Sense Key : Not Ready [current]" and "Add. Sense: Medium not present"

Dear Linux-Wizards,

I have some USB flash drive that outputs the following errors, when i plug it in:

VGscsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     SMI01    USB DISK01       1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 491520000 512-byte logical blocks: (252 GB/234 GiB)
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current] 
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current] 
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
VGldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current] 
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
VG sdc: unable to read partition table
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current] 
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 1d 4b ff 80 00 00 08 00
VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 491519872 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current] 
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 1d 4b ff 80 00 00 08 00
VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 491519872 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 61439984, async page read

lsblk output looks okayish, disk size is reported correctly.

sdc      8:32   1 234,4G  0 disk

When i first noticed, i hoped maybe only the first Sectors are broken, but now i’m trying with ddrescue and ddrescue -d and see the similar messages:

I/O error, dev sdc, sector 237172352 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x800 phys_seg 15 prio class 2
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current] 
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 0e 22 f7 00 00 00 80 00

It’s a USB-3 flash drive, so i also tried an USB-2 port hoping that maybe its some connection thing, but it did not help, I see the same error messages.

Normally USB flash drives warm a bit when reading/writing data, this one ist still cold after 25 minutes of ddrecue

Is there anything else i can do?

Backstory is: I was helping someone with their Windows PC and unplugged the stick without ejecting it, then Windows complained and i pressed to “scan and repair drive” which took a while. At 80% a error message appeared similar to: “insert medium into drive” When clicking OK the message reappeared after one or two seconds. It only stopped after unplugging the flash drive.

The user already said something about folders appearing at wrong locations at the drive, so i hope i did not kill the drive but it was already dying. But still feeling bad about this, so i want to try everything and even reach out to you :-)