changed date on swann dvr8-2550, past video not present now

[it-tech-not-dvr 0]

Hi.

With a Swann 8CH H.264DVR, DVR8-2550, a 500Gb internal HDD.

 

The user had recorded wanted data on DVR. Upon review of the data, the user noticed the DATE was not current / real-world date (it was set to march 2013 or so), so user changed date to current (then approximately nov 2, 2012) and then all or most all data on DVR was no longer present.

 

HOW do we get the data recordings back to being present?

 

User tried to change the data back to something near original, to no positive change, and probably tried a number of additional date changes. Wanted recordings are not present. Need to recover such recordings, by either connecting this HDD to another system/PC, or such. Have tried to scan HDD for data, but not much success there.

 

Contacting Swann -TS- tech support (surprised to get someone there), they said HDD should be FAT32 format (**I find HDD to be Linux ext2/fs), and was said that when date is changed, some/various data will not be present... the guy was not very clear there, and I tried and tried. TS said the files are saved in format of date-* ect., but I find no interpretable date format.

 

2 partitions on 500Gb HDD; approximately 1=6Gb 1=460Gb; through recovery, have files of name as "f449456248.*". Pulled 200 files off drive, mostly *.txt files, but files of any size consequence, have *.gpg extension, and are 17 items at 70Gb total. Not able to interpret *.gpg; showing as no playable... Hummm. Ignorance prevails.

 

HOW CAN we get these videos to show up again on the DVR?

 

Thanks for your repsonse.

Me

[qsomers 0]

check your settings, is it set to get rid of data that's more than a certain amount of time old? If so it may have seen that data wasn't in the period of time and got rid of it. Another idea, some dvr's use a system to organize the footage to make it easier to find and access, such as a calendar where you click a date to go to the footage for that day. If it has a script to organize the footage (the script usually runs at midnight to create another "day file" and activate the date on the calendar so you can click on it) it might not know how to make sense of the files that are so far in the future. If you really need to view the footage, you can see if it's still there by putting the hard drive in a PC or accessing the footage another way, some dvr's let you access the hard drive at root level if you log into it from the same network it's on. I don't know of a way you will be able to have the footage show back up in the user interface of the dvr itself.

[it-tech-not-dvr 0]

Hi, I appreciate your reply!

There does not appear to be a dvr setting to get rid of old data per date entry, but there is for disk capacity/full matters; this is not factor here, as 500Gb disk had over 450Gb free space, per dvr too.

There is a data type of search, in the dvr GUI, where you go to a particular day/month/year and in the month calendar, 'it' highlights any days w/recordings on them, and you can select that day, and then look at the hourly 'entries', and if wanted, select them, and watch that footage, either 1 to 8 cameras at a time. -pretty clear stuff-.

Per non-dvr connection; I did pull the HDD, and on the format ext2/fs, I set a program to recover all data on the HDD, and did recover 90+Gbytes data (not so much, but enough of great interest). The dvr, for the recordings one could see there, thinks it has about (say...) 12.5Gb; so the or some data is clearly there, that is not showing up in the dvr GUI. Don't even have real interest in the dvr ever showing the data again... but want to see this footage, for sure; so....

The data recovered is a mix of *.gpg, *.txt, *.swf, *.mp3... ect. The data files *.gpg are the only ones w/any decent capacity; ranging from 1+Gb to 13+gb, there are a few *.orf files, one 18Gb... ect.

So, it is my understanding that the *.gpg files (having looked up the extension and understand the GNU encrypted nature of it, is what the dvr interprets for playback, and can export it from dvr as a *.H264 format...) ---so my understanding is I may be able to run a 'program' against the *.gpg files to "decrypt' them. Suggested as MEO, and another as True Crypt. I'm going to try one or both of those in the next 24hrs... will let you know how it goes. ******

 

I noted this, for sure... on the dvr, there is a LOG file, that, when 'searched' on a start/end date, when i search into the future, the LOG files shows ALLLLLL activity, even into the future, where, though the system data was wrong (per real world), it show the recording (motion/action/whatever) for all those days that are gone,,, even shows the data/time the user changed the system setting, changing the date the first time... hahaha. By the way, changing the date on dvr to current/future, ect, did not change/bring back any apparent relationship to those other data files present on HDD.

I DID THIS TEST... in dvr log and search in OCT, had 5 days w/recording a bit each day; WHEN changed the date on dvr to a date in the MIDDLE of those days, any recoding on that day, and AFTER that day, are gone, per the dvr ability to show up in the GUI calendar, and cannot be referenced there, and therefore will not playback. no matter my changing the dvr date back to ...any future date, again. Gone, just like the original stuff of interest; proving the theory, ***change the date to point A, and everything in log file into the future PAST A is no longer accessible.

By the way, while the LOG files is exportable, and I did so, that and the dvr GUI both show all recording activity, in the dvr, when selecting a recording logged for the future, the data/time ect is there, but selecting the item to 'play', dvr says "can't find the file you're looking for"... something like that. AND of course, cause the "index" is toast, from what I understand.

 

--I am open to any ideas you or anyone has. if anything, this makes for easy reading... hahaha-- Thanks.