I wanted to try Linux like many around here, and went through installing it as a dual-boot on my computer. I followed the “Etcher broke my USB stick … or did it?” link and followed all of the directions in an attempt to remove the ISO from my USB thumb-drive, but that did not work. After searching and reading for a long time, I found something that worked for me. In Windows, press Windows Key + R to open the Run command. Type “diskmgmt.msc” without quotes to open Disk Management. You should see the USB as one of the disks. Click (in my case) the D: at the bottom of the window. Select “New Simple Volume” and follow the wizard. On mine, the only thing I had to change was to uncheck the Quick Format box. This removes everything from the USB drive. Once the wizard is done, click finish and then the computer will begin working. Do note, this may take a while. I have a 1 TB drive and it took maybe 30 minutes.
I started typing this as the drive was being fixed, so my apologies if I missed something or wasn’t clear. Do note, this will revert the USB drive back to its new and empty state. My technical knowledge certainly has its limit, so maybe someone here can further explain why this works. After seeing so many topics about others having this same issue, I wanted to post something that will hopefully help some other tired and frustrated people as I was.