USB Flash Drive showing up as LOCAL DISK

*sigh* I have just ended up buying one of these defective sticks that it seems SanDisk are now covertly offloading from their stock. This has been very dissappointing and even a bit embarrassing as I’ve always been a vocal supporter of SanDisk USB sticks and only bought this brand. So now I’m needing to buy another stick as this one I’ve been saddled with just can’t do the job. Does anybody know if there is any way whatsoever to tell if the SanDisk USB drive is one of the defective ones or not, before purchase? Is there a list of known defective types? I’ve actually had to swallow some pride and look at some of SanDisk’s competitor’s drives so atleast I can be sure of what I’m getting. I’d rather avoid that. Does anybody know if any of the SanDisk 128GB drives were also defectively manufactured? If that is known with absolutey certainty, I may just have to splurge on one of those.