Deleted a clip, let the recorder loop over it, or watched the drive give out? The recording you’re after — for the insurer, a claim or the police — is usually still sitting on the disk. We read the odd, manufacturer-specific formats that DVRs and NVRs write in, reconstruct the video straight off the drive, and hand it back as ordinary timestamped files anyone can play.
$ bdr triage /dev/sdb → Device: Hikvision NVR HDD · 6 TB → Status: FOOTAGE LOOPED OVER — oldest blocks → Target: 09 Feb, 22:15–00:45 · cam 5 $ bdr engineer-working → Read-only image: taken · recorder halted in time → File system: Hikvision layout · parsed → Streams: H.265 rebuilt by timestamp $ bdr verify → ✓ channel 5 — 2h 30m recovered → ✓ exported — MP4 + timestamps → ✓ footage recovered — incident captured
A DVR or NVR never stops writing — it records in a ring, laying new video over the oldest to free up room, so every hour the box keeps running drags the clip you want closer to being gone for good. If there is a particular time you need, kill the power or pull the hard drive out now, and don’t let it carry on recording or reset it. Stop it early and there is far more to recover. And a drive that has already failed shouldn’t be retried on a loop — get it to us instead.
Deleted, looped over or lost to a dead recorder drive — either way the video is usually still down on the platters, waiting to be carved back out. These are the jobs that land on our desk most often.
Whatever DVR, NVR or camera system captured it, and whatever in-house format it saved to, we can usually get the footage out. If a box recorded it, the odds are firmly in your favour.
Analogue or IP · DVRs, NVRs and RAID NVRs · one drive or many · fixed and dashboard cameras · SD and microSD flash.
Pulling CCTV back comes down to three things: knowing the recorder’s own format, never once writing to its disk, and cutting the video out by camera and moment. The drive is cloned first, the format decoded, and then your footage recovered and exported as ordinary files.
Give us the make of recorder, the camera in question and the exact date and time you are after.
If the box is still live, job one is cloning its disk before the ring buffer laps and buries any more of what you need.
A full sector-level, write-blocked copy is taken of the recorder’s disk and everything afterwards runs on that copy — even when the drive needs head or PCB work before it will read at all.
We pin down and unpick the maker’s own file system — Hikvision, Dahua and the rest — walking its allocation table and block index to find the recordings by channel and time.
Where the index is missing, the H.264 or H.265 streams are rebuilt straight from raw blocks — finding the I-frame that opens each GOP — to lift out the precise channels and time ranges wanted.
The footage is written out as standard timestamped MP4 or AVI, and we confirm the incident itself is in there.
Recovered footage comes back on new media or over a secure transfer, ready to use or pass to your insurer or the police.
From DVRs and NVRs to RAID recorders, security cameras and loose SD cards, we lift the footage — off a read-only clone, through the recorder’s own format, and out as standard files you can just play.
Tell us what happened and we’ll get back to you, usually within a working day.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 01483 901310.
No surprise charges and no pressure — a free diagnostic and a written quote come before any work starts.
A few recent CCTV, DVR and NVR jobs. Identifying details stripped out, footage handed over.
We cut the DVR’s power, cloned its disk, and carved the H.265 streams for the night that mattered. The whole incident came back.
We reassembled the array from clones of all four disks, decoded the recordings, and exported the dates the owner needed for their insurer.
We cloned the card and carved its clips by timestamp, getting back the footage the owner was after.
Send the device in for its free diagnostic and tell us briefly what happened; an engineer reviews it and confirms your exact quote in writing before anything starts.
Getting your data back begins with getting the device to us. Pack it up safely, pop your contact details inside, and send it over — once we’ve run the free diagnostic, we’ll confirm your exact price in writing before any work starts.
Posting it? A tracked, insured service is what we’d recommend. Rather drop it in? You’re welcome Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm — just package the device up as above first.
Want a bit more detail first? Fill in the form with more about your issue and an engineer will review it and send you a custom quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 01483 901310.
The things people ask us most before sending a recorder or card in.
Frequently, yes. A deletion only wipes the index — the video blocks stay put until the recorder loops around and writes over them. We clone the disk, decode the recorder’s file system or carve the H.264/H.265 streams by hand, and recover whatever has not already been recorded over.
Not always. The oldest footage goes first, but data overwritten only recently can often still be carved back, and anything you managed to stop in time recovers well. Cut the power to the recorder now and get it to us.
Because DVRs and NVRs keep footage in their maker’s own file system — Hikvision, Dahua and plenty more — rather than NTFS or FAT, so Windows treats the disk as blank and offers to format it. The footage is fine; we read that format directly on a copy and export the video as standard files.
Yes. When the recorder won’t boot or the disk is clicking or invisible, we clone the failing drive read-only first, then decode the format and carve the footage — exactly as we would any dead hard drive, only for video.
Yes. Give us the recorder, the camera channel and the window the incident falls in, and we target those recordings. They come back carrying their original timestamps, so there is no doubt about when they were shot.
We do. Multi-disk NVRs and RAID recorders are routine here: every disk is cloned read-only, the array — often embedded Linux software RAID — is rebuilt to its original geometry, and then the recorder’s file system is read across the reassembled volume to recover the footage.
Standard timestamped MP4 or AVI that opens in any player, so you can review it, keep it, or pass it to an insurer or the police without ever needing the recorder’s own software.
Yes. Corrupt, formatted or unreadable SD and microSD cards from standalone and IP cameras come back — continuous recording wears the flash, so we clone the card, or read it at chip level when the controller is dead, and carve the video out.
A single-drive recorder or a camera SD card is a flat £800 + VAT. Once you move up to a failed drive or a multi-drive RAID box the price rises — we quote that after the free diagnostic.
Pull the hard drive or the memory card out of the unit and post only that, fully insured — or bring it in to our Guildford Business Park point, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. Jot down who you are and the exact date and time you need, and we log it and get going.
A free diagnostic, footage recovered by camera and time from a DVR, NVR or SD card — even a failed recorder — and exported as standard files for your insurer or the police. Get in touch.