Fault finding
The thing to do is put the USB stick back in your friend's computer and copy the file off it to see how it does. And try copying the same files back on to the USB stick from your laptop. Then try the same thing with a different USB stick. It's possible that the USB stick is to blame, rather than your laptop.
Once you've established if it is your laptop or the USB stick that is to blame, then you cam start to try and find the problem. Make sure you have the latest drivers for your USB host controller and chipset. Updating your BIOS can't hurt either. There are some laptops that come with aditional drivers to enable USB 2.0, but default to USB 1.1, so that's worth investigating.
It would help if you mentioned the make and model of your laptop, what operating system you're using, what patches you have applied that might be of relevance, and what you've done to try and fix the problem already.
Of course, it is possible that you just have a s*** laptop :-)