That's exactly what happened, they treated mr like a virus  

About your thumb drives, small ones/older ones are generally formatted as FAT32 which is a universal basic hard drive format that really does go all the way back to DOS -- or if they were an advanced large capacity thumb drive they might be formatted as NTFS format which is the current Windows format.  

Key thing is that thumb drives are always an attractive snack bit for a Windows virus.

Leaving stuff on your Mint desktop, that's a folder on a hard drive that is formatted in Ext4, the current Linux standard high efficiency high security format.   To get to your data on your desktop folder, a virus has to deal with a hardened Linux operating system and a drive format it generally wasn't even created to be able to read, much less to go screw up.

So, if you are going for maximum data security, only put stuff on your thumb drive when you need to archive copy it, the rest of the time your data is safer on your Linux desktop stuck inside your personal data folder.  

Don't leave thumb drives plugged in all the time, they are at an ongoing risk of a Windows virus or worm or etc. etc. while they are just hanging out of the front of the machine.   Really, it is about as safe as a strip of bacon sticking out of the wire mesh of a dog pen.  

Very attractive.   Gets eaten pretty quick.

Remember, Mint can read/write any hard drive format, and it generally matches the write format to what it finds on the write to device.    You can reach inside your Windows NTFS format with Mint and read files, then write them to your Linux hard drive desktop -- the format of the data is changed during this copy/paste.  

Read NTFS, write Ext4.  And vice versa if the data is going the other way.

Now, when this doesn't happen flawlessly, it causes you a heart ache -- so keep your data on a folder on your desktop as its normal resting place, and only copy it over to your flash drive one way (periodically back it up).   Only write it once (when recovering from a disaster).  Keep the thumb drive safe in a drawer -- not plugged into something all the time. 



So, what did we learn?  Bouncing data files back and forth between hard drive formats isn't recommended as a repeated repeated repeated activity because "shite can always happen" if you give it enough chances to happen.  

One of the drives involved being a little sour can do it to you, if you bounce stuff between drives and formats all the time.

  ..... that thumb drive has a limited read/write life-span too, did you know that?  Flash drive "trim errors" do accumulate, cutting down on the drive's capacity.

If it's the same machine, you can just leave them where they are and access them with Linux.  It will read your Win partitions, no problem. You can open excel spreadsheets with Libre Office Calc.  I am sure there is an ebook solution as well.  I haven't really researched it. Though, I might have to soon as I'll probably switch soon and have many ebooks.

Ebook readers are as varied as the current crop of Windows readers is quite diverse.   What reader do you use now (what format are the ebooks in?)

Start from there and ask for a reader for that XYZ format in Ubuntu.

Went to Linux site and downloaded cinnamon to a 32 gig thumb... got a mirror site from Oklahoma university....
forgot how I did it first time but it loaded the 32 bit to the thumb, well the "image" thing....
thought kewl i'll just stick it in the little laptop and see what comes up.... booted it up, nothing blank screen, and now it won't even boot up at all,
so I thought ok maybe wrong site.
went to Linux.com/download tried to use the big green buttons to download mint 16, and it started loading apps on my computer.... "check your speed", "optimize your drive", "view password" holy crap!  took me a bit to find most of them in remove area... guess I got the wrong Linux site????
now my internet on the big laptop sux...gonna have to find what is running in the backround....
windows 8 sux at finding stuff

LOL! never trust yahoo search.... the first four things that popped up where advertisement searches... I just clicked on the first "Linux.com" I seen, it was convincing enough to make me click on the "download mint 16 now" button... wow...

Went back again and got the "REAL" Linux site, downloading the iso again... so how do I open the iso on a non functioning computer?

Can't even get to the bios.... tried "delete key" "esc" "F8" "F10" you name it... it shows the asus and intel on screen bootup the I just get the dos blinking hash at the top left... it moves down two rows still blinking then just quits.

I'm attempting to burn the iso to a disc...first attempt just copied the iso... working on a second attempt.

Finally got into the bios.... esc key pressing wildly soon as I pressed power key.... trying the recovery discs.... see what is up

Will copied iso file (could have sworn it said "burn data disc") work?

First, tell us which little laptop you are talking about.  Be specific.  

What sort of optical drive does it have, CD or DVD?

How do you get to the bios when you power up the machine?  

Your bios needs to be set to recognize the USB drives as bootable drives, and be aware that USB 1.0 didn't always have this available because it wasn't invented way back then.

Lastly, if the BIOS supporting little flat battery is dead, so is the laptop until you get it replaced.

If all you have is a CD read only drive, then you need to go look at Peppermint since it comes on a CD.   Everything else that is more modern/bigger is too big for your CD optical drive to read (comes on DVD).

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How to burn an ISO image

First, you tell us what sort of image burning software you have available on Windows.   It has to be able to burn what your "little laptop" can read.