For anyone reading this. I opted to download the zip file first. My application was working directly with Balena Cloud so it was providing the image file via the browser. When I chose the downloaded file then it reported that my flash drive was too small for my image.
The USB drives I was using and failed are not exactly recognizable by my Windows laptop anymore. But I brought them to a different PC and they work still. Very odd but for my situation, my issue is resolved.