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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Is there any possibility to recover Data from CCTV camera???

September 19th, 2010, 15:16

Hello,
I recently came across this website and had a question for those with recovering Data from CCTV cameras. Im currently living in a condo that has a significant amount of CCTV Camera installed in and around it. I was attack and assaulted in my building garage by a bunch of thugs. When i requested to get the video from the building management to help my case in court, they refused and told me the camera footage had over-written itself after two weeks and the footage was no long available. Well just recently a new management has taken over and i was wondering if i were to still be able to recover this footage from a year ago, since our court case is still pending and it was be extremely useful.

Thank you

Re: Is there any possibility to recover Data from CCTV camera???

September 19th, 2010, 15:33

Most DVR systems do overwrite when they fill up. As soon as it fills up it goes back to the first date and starts overwriting. So i would say no there is no chance of getting data from a year ago.

Re: Is there any possibility to recover Data from CCTV camera???

September 19th, 2010, 15:53

Confirmed. After an event the DVR should always be stopped if possible and the footage saved, and/or the disk/s replaced with new one/other and stored as evidence.
You can use the same DVR as player or if possible data can be extracted.
Just in case, a 1:1 duplicate of the disk can be made too.
I think in your case it's too late (after 1 year) , all the DVR I see can take up no more than 1-2 month recording depending on the configuration, 1 year is a lot of time...

You can check in any case what system is and what the features are. Let us know.

Re: Is there any possibility to recover Data from CCTV camera???

September 19th, 2010, 18:51

This is true. Usually the oldest data gets deleted and overwritten- the first time this happened the data would be lost forever. You could have got a police order back then for the security company to save the data until proper warrants were issued.
But that footage is gone now.

In this case maybe you can ask your lawyer to investigate why you were denied the footage and what internal (cctv company) procedures were applied. Maybe you can get some compensation from the cctv company for neglecting your case (Thats the purpose of CCTV - to monitor you safety and notify the Police in case of suspicious activity - it could have even been an inside job) Finding the thugs - a year later as good as chance of getting the data back (they might be in jail already you never know)

Sorry nobody could help you.
Hope you are well though.

Good luck.
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