I'm not overly surprised that a "Copy of sensors.dat" file would be chosen over a "sensors.dat" file if both resided in the same folder.
It is not uncommon for games, and from other behaviour I know this includes SH3, to include dynamic file retrieval from folders. This allows, for instance, the ability to add extra .tga files to certain folders with the game finding them and picking them up without caring about the name, or even file extension.
In some implementations, I have seen this as a very simple "does the file extension look good, yep, ok, does the file contain this certain value, yep, good enough, this file will do". I'm not saying that's how SH3 does it, but with "Copy of..." coming before "sensors" alphabetically, if this approach, or something similar is modelled, it would logically find the first match, generally being "Copy of" (although, see below for caveat).
Alternatively, if the file retrieval is partly dynamic, it may be like "find a file that's like sensor.dat".
This could be tested in part by renaming the "Copy of sensors.dat" to "zzzsensors.dat". But, the result may still not provide anything - as depending on file system the *earliest* version of the file may still be the first found, ie "zzzsensors.dat".
I've done this myself in applications, so it is plausible. Whether it's relevant to SH3, I don't know. It's just a possible explanation...
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