Hello,

First post here. I have a problem, and I'm trying to get some help.

A professional installer did a 4 camera installation with the CPD 500W unit. We found out our installations were robbed yesterday night, and the cameras were all broken, all except for one of them.

We tried to contact the installer, but he's probably out of business. He doesn't answer his phone, and the company is nowhere to be found.

The unit is still in recording mode, and there's still one camera working. It's possible it captured some of the break-in.

Anyway, whenever we try to play the recordings, we get a "beep" from the unit, and nothing happens. I've downloaded a manual for the unit, but it doesn't say a thing about our situation. Nothing works - no menu, no camera switch, no nothing. All I get are "beeps".

I suppose the installer changed the default pasword for the unit. But he didn't leave us any documentation whatsoever.

What are our chances of getting back the video? What can se do?

thanks for your help.

http://scorpiontheater.com/cpcamtechsupport.aspx

Try downloading Video Server S and hooking up to the DVR.

If he left it at default then it would be
admin
admin
This might be a back door way to get in.


It is possible to that it is password protected.
If you believe that the DVR appears to be operational, then you might try a hardware reset.

You will have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to get to the Hardware Reset area of the page.

I wish you luck!

Thank you very much, I appreciate your help a lot! Hopefully, we'll find out what happened.

I forgot to mention!

I know the information in this post may not apply to you, but I put it in just in case someone else comes to this post from a google search!


Power down the DVR. (Pull the Plug).

Remove the hard drive. Replace the hard drive with a comparable hardrive. This will allow the DVR to record to the new hard drive until you can figure out how to "unlock" your DVR.

It is possible that your video may get overwritten before you get to it!

Once the machine is "unlocked", then you can power down the DVR again, and swap hard drives and then you can down load the video via the video out (monitor out) or through the Video Server S.

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If I remember right you can just power it down, and remove the hard drive, and then turn it back on with out the hard drive. It will not be recording anything, but you can still view your cameras on the monitor.

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WARNING!!!!!!!************

Do not remove the hard drive, or insert a hard drive while the DVR is powered up. It will blow the hard drive if you think this is a hot swapable hard drive system!!!

TURN OFF THE DVR!!

WARNING!!!!!!************

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Now for something completely off topic.

If you are having problems with this DVR, and you are having recording problems, but the DVR appears to be working normally then power down your DVR.

Remove the Hard Drive by sliding it out. Reinsert the Hard Drive.

This may "clean" out the dirt on the contacts allowing the DVR to "talk" to the Hard Drive, and vice versa.

This is the same for the 9 channel version as well.
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The default password for this DVR is 0000.

To key-in the Password, press the “Right” and “Left” buttons to move between numbers, and use the “Up”
and “Down” buttons to input the number.
Press the ENTER button once the correct Password is entered. The MENU options screen will appear.
Note: If you get a message “Password Error”, you might enter an incorrect password.

I find it strange that you cannot push the camera buttons to select different views even though it may be password protected.

You should also be able to choose single camera or multicamera views.

Things that make you go HMMMMM!

Very strange thing. One video output cycled the cameras. The other one showed all cameras simultaneously. But I couldn't choose any single one.

Anyway,

I followed the guides, but the installer did change every password. Admin / admin didn't work. So I disassembled the unit, found the "reset" jumper (in a different position than what the guide said, but then again, it was a different unit). Everything was fine afterwards!

I connected my PC, searched for the video, and I did hit paydirt - the car of the burglars, the time they did it, how they broke in, and how they tried to remove the cameras. Interestingly enough, when they were removing the camera, it fell on one of the burglars' faces, so we got an amazing close up.

I cannot thank you enough for your help. Seriously.

I am really glad to hear that everything worked out!!

Let me know if the panel is still working wierd as it was before.

Take care!