After installing Driver updater free 30 day trial a usb thumb drive and a usb hard drive are no longer readable, error says “format drives before use”. I tested all usb ports with a blank thumbdrive and none of them worked.
I reinstalled Windows 11 and all the ports now work but I had to take my hard drive to data recovery firm as I never finished backing up.
I have never had this problem before, ever. Some googled sites say that malware or corrupted system files could have caused this but I have been running Avast Virus Scan continuously.