Hello, I have an ACARD duplicator controler (ARS-P2053A) with a few Plextor L890SA drives. I installed the software provided by ACARD, selected the Plextor drives from the list, etc... I created a template, and printed it with the "logical" lightscribe drive which spit out an LSI file. I then burned this LSI file onto a CD-RW, popped it into my source drive, and tried loading the file... but it won't recognize that there's an LSI file on the disc.

I'm really not sure what to do at this point. Is there a specific file naming convention that I have to follow? I'm not using any special characters, and I put the file on the root of the disc. It just refuses to recognize it

This type of question should be directed to the manufacturer or THEIR Forum!

What a helpful reply, I would've never thought of contacting the manufacturer!

Wrong. I did try, and so far I haven't gotten any responses. I don't think their "forum" actually exists. They have a link to one, but it immediately asks for a login, and there's no registration link anywhere. I have yet to find a single thread from there by googling, etc... I came across these forums, and I saw that the few threads on here seem to be tech support type of questions (the rest are people just not understanding that you need software provided by the manufacturer to generate the LSI files). I figured there may be someone on here with a similar controller who may be able to offer me help.

+ I'm not sure where the problem lies; hardware or software. If it's software, then this forum would be more appropriate since the software is designed by HP. And before you say it's not, go take a look a closer look to the files installed by the different manufacturers' suites. You'll find the only difference is the title of the "fake" burner in an XML file. Everything else is identical. The LSI files they spit out are bit-for-bit identical if you use the same template. (I got desperate and tried using another manufacturers' software suite, only to find out that they're the same).

I suspect the issue may lie somewhere in the software, simply because every other function on my duplicator works fine, and the LSI files compress to 3% their original size, which to me suggests that there's a lot of data missing.

It might be a waste of time but I would try burning the .lsi file on a CD-R blank and be sure to finalize it. Then use that disc in the source slot. Your problem might be stemming from the duplicator software/firmware being unable to read a technically "open" CD-RW disc. I am assuming you installed the Acard software properly. I have seen some duplicators that must be not be connected to the host PC when the manufacturer specific duplicator software is installed. I'm not sure that is true for an Acard controller since I don't think you are using a commercial model duplicator tower. The target "drive" that shows in the available Lightscribe drive  for a duplicator is the model number of the duplicator, not the individual optical drives in the tower. Where are you located? In the United States Acard tech support email is :

 support@acard.com 

The Acard registration link is as follows:

 http://www.acard.com/english/fc06-register.jsp 

Below is a link to the Acard tech support request form:

 http://www.acard.com/english/fc03.jsp 

There is also telephone tech support located in New Jersey and California