jaugustine wrote:

I have a Samsung Android OS tablet ...

I haven't delved into tablets but I'm pretty sure there is more than
just one model for one brand.

... with a SD card that I am unable to
remove ("stuck"). The alternative to putting files on that card is
to connect a USB cable, used for charging the tablet, into my
Windows 7 Home Premium laptop computer. Win7 detects the tablet, but
does NOT assign a drive letter to that device, as it does if I
plugged in a SD card..

I can transfer files to my tablet's SD card this way, but their
original time and dates are replaced with the time and date of the
transfer!!!!

One solution for now, I "zip" up the files and transfer the FILE.ZIP
to my tablet's SD card (can't be removed), and use "X-plore", a file
manager, that can open the FILE.ZIP and allow me to view those files
and see their original time and dates.

I don't know if the tablet would "see" a USB flash drive if I had the
proper cable to connect it to the tablet?

Probably not going to keep the original timestamps when using
Windows/File Explorer. When it creates a new file (the destination for
a copy operation), the timestamp will be when the file was created.

You can try using the command shell to do copy operations, like using
robocopy included in Windows. See:

https://superuser.com/a/1326224

Not sure how you are copying files from your PC to your tablet if
Windows on the PC is not assigned a drive letter to the tablet. How
are you going to transfer the .zip file from the PC to the tablet
without a drive letter for the tablet?

You sure the USB port in the tablet is configured for file transfer?
The setting in the tablet might restrict the USB port to just charging
or other limited use. In addition, in your tablet, you might have to
change from PTP to MTP for connection protocol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_Transfer_Protocol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol