can't boot a Mint Cin 17.1 live Sandisk Ultra Fit 3.0 32GB

No doubt those things might affect certain situations, but here is how I can rule that sort of stuff out. If I make an image of the Ultra Fit, write that image to another thumb drive, and insert that other drive into the *same* laptops, the problem isn’t there. And the Ultra Fit has been doing it from the beginning, so it’s not as if the Ultra Fit has oxidized or rusted or what have you and is only now showing the problem – it always has.