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ADR / Evidence, claims and footage / The disk from a recorder

Evidence work · the disk within a CCTV recorder

CCTV and DVR hard drive recovery. The drive has gone. What is on it usually has not.

Mains off. Drive out. The drive goes in the post; the recorder stays put. Boot loops, black panels, a menu that reports no disk, live pictures with silent playback behind them — the drive causes nearly all of it, not the box. That disk gets written to for every second of power the box has, and it tends to be the cheapest item anyone specified. Leave the unit running and the loop comes round again, spending more of what you rang about. Looking at it costs nothing. The job is £400 + VAT, half payable up front when a drive has to be opened.

No fee at all on most jobs if the files do not return Handled as an exhibit from the moment it arrives Each hour the loop covers more of what is left

Talk it over with an engineer, in confidence
0203 0868633

What actually goes wrong in there.

The kind of disk it isSurveillance drives are made for writing without pause: the SkyHawk range from Seagate, Purple from Western Digital. Beside what the cameras cost they are nothing, and it is the ceaseless writing that ends them.
What the screen showsBoot loops. A panel that never lights. A menu that reports no disk fitted. Live pictures perfectly good while playback does nothing at all, or stops a few seconds into the same hour each time it is tried.
Why a computer sees nothingHardly any recorder writes a filesystem a computer would recognise, and a number write straight to the bare device. Put that disk on a Windows machine and what appears is an empty disk with an offer to format it. Things are better than they look. Say no.
What cannot be got backFootage that has been written over. Encrypted files that arrive with no password file. Anything lying in a band the drive will not read. Where that is the outcome, you hear it early, and most jobs carry no charge if the data does not return.

What the symptom usually means.

Not listed? Tell us what it does →
What is going onThe usual reason for itWhere that leaves you
It reboots and rebootsIt is waiting on a disk that never answersMains lead out now
The menu can find no hard diskEither the drive is off the bus or the heads have failedRefuse the reformat offer and remove it
Live pictures fine, playback silentThe video is fine. It is the index pointing at it that is hurtPost the drive in
A click, or a slow buzz, from within the boxHeads down on the surface. Each switch-on removes moreKeep it off the power
A PC says the disk is unformattedNo PC reads the layout a recorder writesNormal. Decline the format prompt
A new disk is already in the recorderWherever the original disk has ended up, it is the evidenceGet it back untouched, then post it in
How it reaches us:send it by tracked, insured post; Guildford takes it in, and the leg home is on us. Unsure what should travel with it? A call before the box is sealed will get you an engineer who can say what to include and what stays behind. The whole of it is spelled out on theguide to packing and posting.

The sequence we follow.

Other jobs on the log →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on it the day the parcel lands, and an engineer settles what has truly failed before anything else happens — free of charge, and first in the order of work. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNothing owed at this stage
02

Stop it where it is

Mains off, drive out, and no computer connected to it. Where a disk gives no answer at all, the fault is identified before any reading is attempted — the heads, the motor, the board, the drive's own firmware area — and only after that does anyone go near the data.

Nothing more written to itA read-only copy made
03

Repair only as far as the image

Repair stops at the point an image becomes possible, and goes no further. On goes a write blocker; the copy is read off read-only; weak ground gets short passes instead of force. Since all the work afterwards is done on the copy, the original gets handled a single time.

Heads, board and motorRead in short passes only
04

Then lift the video

Clips emerge in sequence where the recorder's layout made it into the image, each with its channel and its recording time attached. Where the layout did not survive, video is combed out of the image using the fixed byte pattern that opens every compressed frame — and it plays with no labels on it.

Layout read off the copyCarved where none survived
05

You see the file list before you pay

What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge whatever. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have read those files on a machine of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the jobThe post home is ours

What the bench has learned

  • This is not gentle duty — a drive in a surveillance box writes for its whole working life, and it is usually the least expensive item in there. Non-stop writing is what ends them.
  • A PC will call it empty — the layouts recorders write are their own, and some write to the bare device, so Windows sees nothing it knows and proposes a format. Refuse. It is all still underneath.
  • The copy is what gets worked — write blocker on, image off, and no file gets opened until that is done. One careful pass rather than fifty, since on a failing disk any pass could be the last one.
  • Three things set the limit, and only three. The loop got to your hour first. Or the disk holds a region that will not read, with your hour in it. Or the recorder ran on for another week. Skill has no bearing on any of the three, and which one applies is something you hear before you pay.

Post the drive; the box stays with you: a recorder is heavy, fares badly in transit, and this bench has no use for one. Take the disk out, write down its bay, and send that single item packed so tightly it cannot move. Multi-disk NVRs are the exception, because video is distributed across the set — every disk travels, in bay order. Ring us before packing. The return postage is on us.

One job, followed all the way through.

LDN · ADR-2026-3419JOB LOGGED ✓

A yard gate recorder gone quiet, out at Rainham

Nobody had followed up the night gate camera; its playback had stopped weeks before. Then a consignment came into dispute. One head on the drive was bad. Repair went no further than making an image possible, and the surface was read back in short passes. Four channels of the eight came through with their times intact. A band running across the middle of the platter would not read, and what was in it is there still. A partial recovery, and written up as exactly that.

4of the 8 channels back, times still attached72hours at the bench

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Get the power off it first
  • Write down make, model, and the date that matters
  • Send the drive; the recorder stays with you
  • Name the owner, and who can authorise us to begin

What sets us back

  • Leaving it powered and hoping it recovers
  • Agreeing to a reformat to make it boot
  • Slipping the disk into a PC for a look
  • Letting a replacement go in as the original leaves

The questions that come up first.

The menu says no hard disk. Has my video gone with it?

The message proves no such thing. What it reports is one fact only: the recorder has lost sight of its disk. The platters still carry your video, exactly where they always did. Pull the mains lead before anything else, though. Every further hour of writing by a failing disk takes something with it.

Windows offers to format the drive. Have I harmed it?

You have not. But turn the offer down. The layout a recorder writes was never meant for Windows to read, which is why a disk stuffed with video presents as empty. Decline, unplug, and mention at booking whether a format has already gone through, because it moves the starting point of the search.

Do you want the recorder too?

Just the drive. A recorder weighs a good deal, takes a beating in transit, and is of no use whatever on this bench. One exception: on a multi-disk NVR the video is distributed across the set, so ring first and we will say what has to travel.

Can the installer just fit a new disk?

Only where the old disk leaves for good. Put it back into any recorder and that recorder starts writing across it. Ask for it unpowered and bagged against static, then keep it somewhere secure while you make up your mind about what is on it.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

What is still on the recorder → Copies the police and insurers take → What is left after a delete → Work that reaches court →

Off the mains first, because that is what protects the evidence.

Whatever holds the evidence, take it off power before anything else — a recorder that is still running overwrites its own oldest material, hour by hour. Send it to us after that. Looking costs nothing; recorder work is £400 + VAT and forensic instructions start at £800 + VAT, both settled in writing beforehand. What sits on that disk stays here.

0203 0868633

Price my job Sending it to Guildford