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Some files on a thumb drive cannot be accessed nor deleted. What can I do to get rid of the offending files, short of reformatting the drive?

Example with two good and two weird entries:

-rwxrwxrwx 1 redbird redbird     5935 Jul  8 19:16 links.htm
-????????? ? ?     ?              ?              ? local-misc.zip
-????????? ? ?     ?              ?              ? localUserMods.zip
-rwxrwxrwx 1 redbird redbird    45402 Jul  8 03:17 tangorg.tar.gz
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    That sounds like a broken and corrupted thumb drive. When the system can't read permissions, file info, etc. I usually start pointing at USB stick failure entirely, and would suggest NOT using this stick anymore. Get a new stick, copy what you can off, then don't use the old stick
    – Thomas Ward ♦
    Commented Jul 9 at 1:07
  • @ThomasWard - your comment is the answer. When I get a failure on a thumb drive, I don't like to throw them away - yet so, soon after reformatting, I put a permanent spot on the body of the USB connector. I noticed as I pulled this thumb drive out that it already had one of my black spots on it, which means this isn't the first time I had some sort of trouble with it.
    – quill
    Commented Jul 9 at 2:20
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    Was the disk in question last used on a Windows system with the "Fast boot" setting enabled? The Windows "Fast Boot" (Windows defaults to "ON") setting leaves the disk partition in an undocumented, proprietary state that Linux isn't permitted to recognize. Boot back into Windows and disable "Fast Boot". Be prepared to have to re-disable "Fast Boot" - Windows updates have been known to turn it back on. See windowscentral.com/how-disable-windows-10-fast-startup
    – waltinator
    Commented Jul 9 at 2:39
  • It was last used on a XUbuntu 22.04 system. If it had at some point been mounted on a Windows system, that would have been an XP SP3 system.
    – quill
    Commented Jul 9 at 13:08

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