I'm always careful about removing it properly

Luckily I had already printed out what I need so I can scan and trace it in Illustrator.

No, because then it wouldn't fit in the USB slot, or it'd be delayed in Germany for two years.

 

I would format it just to be on the safe side and keep using it until this happens again. Fact is, it WILL happen again, it's just a matter of when. If it takes another year to happen again, i would keep using it. That's an acceptable failure rate for me.

 

I say keep it for random not-that-important stuff. And buy a new one for data you don't want to lose.

Or just format it and give it to a friend with a warning of what it did to you.

 

I'd toss it unless you are using it for non-critical data.
Flash memory corruption typically begins at bits flipping here and there. Once you exceed a certain threshold, you start losing usable space (parts of the memory become unusable). If that part that becomes unusable is the A) file system or B) directory structure, you should count yourself lucky because even though it's un-mountable, you can still recover data. If it's C) actual data, well then it's just junk files.

IMO, scenarios for A, B, or C are all reason to use it only for non-critical files. A and B will require re-formatting for further non-critical use. C you can get away with deleting and re-writing.

The worst is D - when it becomes a useless hunk of junk because it's internal firmware is corrupted.

The absolute worst is E - when it overheats, catches on fire, and burns your laptop up.

E is totally irrelevant

 

a full format would make sure bad sectors are tagged and not used when saving data on them, quick format will NOT tag the bad ones. But, that might not be the case with "solid state" style drives.

I heard with solid states, there is a special formatting method where it pulls all the data off the drive and fixes the bad sector, areas, bits, whatever you want to call them, and throws the data back on.