Disc Utility fails to erase and reformat flash drives- both new ones and ones with content on them.

I was able to erase and format unmounted flash drives on second attempt. They appeared in disc utility grayed out but not on desktop. I was able to click onto the drives and they lit up and first aid/erase lit up. so I tried reformatting in Mac journaled and Windows. It worked! I'm suspecting glitches in flash memory drives or possible dirty USB ports- but I blew them with compressed air last month and laptop lives in a very clean environment; but it's 10 years old now And I have noticed occasional issues when plugging into my printer also. So maybe it's the USB ports [2]. A Apple refurbished 1 year old MacBook Pro is on my wish list. Thanks for your help. Russ.

I'm going to buy some Sandisk thumb drives and play around some more since I have quite a bit of work to do in Photos and I am curious about questionable USB ports. I did put a new battery and SSD hard rive into this old MacBook about 5 years ago. It's 10.3 years old now. Amazing. Used only part time might explain it's long life. I will miss the long key stroke key pad and build in DVD drive.... oh and the magnetic charger- they should still have that on the new MB Pros. They skimped. Russ

I did not know this. I never had an issue since 11- 2009. I'm sure USBC will be our future though. Good enough.