Repeated flash drive failure - trying to sort out what happened & why.?

I am using Dell Latitude D630 running Windows 7 64-bit.

I bought two large capacity usb flash drives (eBay) recently. One quit working half way through the first time I tried to use it (saving a back up image to it) and reported that it was write protected.

I contacted the seller and followed his directions on what to do to format it to try to restore it - an error message came up at the end of the format process that "the 0 sector" (zero sector) was not working/bad.

Second flash drive got used to copy a lot of files to transfer from one computer to another, then the computer was turned off overnight and it was picked up the next morning (computer not turned back on) to take to the other computer where the files were going to be transferred.

The Dell did not even recognize that there was a flash drive in the usb port. Nothing in Computer, nothing in Computer Management, and nothing when I tried Easeus Partition Manager. The used on one computer for two days drive did not show up at all on the Dell. Same story on the Windows 7 64-bit Toshiba on the same network. Nothing.....

An older Acer running Windows Vista 32 bit gave a message about inserting media into the (drive letter) and formatting it before use - but didn't seem to recognize the flash drive as a flash drive. I can't format it to see what kind of error messages come up.

The seller says to take it back to Best Buy - but without a receipt dated in the last 15 days, it's going to COST me to have it looked at by the Geek Squad.

I can roll back my computer to Vista or even XP (it came with XP and was updated to Vista, then 7 over time). I have a spare hard drive that I can set up a Linux OS on, if there is a utility in Ubuntu, Zorin, Mint, or PCLinuxOS that would help me "fix" this danged expensive small fishing weight.....just tell me which OS and what utility I need!

I don't use Linux much due to a number of programs running specialized hobby equipment that will not run in anything but a Windows environment - so I don't have Linux set up on a dual boot system, at the moment.