I wanted to rip my large CD collection to hard drive, so I purchased (at a great price!) a Gateway SX2803-US20P small-form PC. The unit has a 1TB hard drive and can lay on its side...perfect for my uses.
I have been happily ripping away, converting each disc to WAV and then to mp3 at 192 kbps. So I end up with two copies of each CD on the hard drive. I have been using Windows Media Player. So far, things have been going quite well. It only takes about 30 seconds to rip an average CD.
I did audio testing of the ripped WAV tracks, using my tried and true test tracks. I used the HDMI output of the PC into my Yamaha Aventage 2000. I could find no difference in sound quality compared to CD. Great!
Here's the problem. I purchased a WD external hard drive and set it up to backup the PC hard drive automatically each time there is a change. Until yesterday, it has been doing so flawlessly.
Yesterday, either WMP or the WD drive started doing something strange -- it started making TWO copies of each WAV or mp3 file. If the title of the main WAV file is "AgentX" then the newly-produced second file has the title "AgentX@" and the @ is followed by a huge string of numbers and letters -- almost like an encryption file. Strangely...the file size of what I am calling these "shadow" files is not the same as the main file -- they are smaller.
I am worried about this. Any clues as to what is happening? I am afraid I will fill up my drive prematurely if this keeps up. I went back and checked the files ripped prior to yesterday -- there are none of these "shadow" files showing for them.
Thanks for any clues.
