I guess you are beyond the point of giving it another try.
For the future I would suggest to get a second USB thumb drive and clone the first one on the second one. Or make an image of the first one and write the image on the second one. Test the second one, so that you know you have a working backup method.
I would suggest to do this offline (i.e. on another computer) and use usbimager for that: https://gitlab.com/bztsrc/usbimager
It is also worth testing the USB stick before first use and every time when you have doubts about its proper function with Htestw or f3