DVR Problems

Hello everyone,

I have been browsing the site for a while now and your wealth of knowledge has helped me a lot, thank you for that and I now need some more assistance. I can't find a thread covering this so here goes.

I bought a 4 camera system by CnM with a 500Gb hard drive and 720tvl camera's.

I leave it on 24 hours a day and enable overwrite so that I only need to check 'if' we ever have a problem as this is watching around the outside of my home.

The problem is that after working fine for six months, I now find that for no apparent reason, the dvr stops recording and shows the error light on the front.

If I go into the menu, the hard drive is there, but no recordings are on it ?

Can anyone suggest if this is a problem with the DVR or hard drive ? I will happily replace the drive, but don't want to waste the money if its more likely to be the DVR.

Finally, if it is the DVR, what is the most reliable brand or model to buy at the moment?

Thanks guys, really down as the first time I actually needed the system was after some recent vandalism, and I find it does not work.

You could remove the hard drive and plug it into your computer and check for errors.

You could also disable recording in your dvr menu and see if the warning light goes out.

Thank you for that. I will try both and see what happens. If all else fails. Does anyone know what the most reliable brand or model is?

Do you know what brand and model of HD the DVR has installed? If you have been using it non stop for 6 months, you might have very well killed the HD if it is a cheap model.

I would also try to use the HD on a computer. If you do need to buy a new HD, get one that is ready for 24/7 operation.

Wow, I thought they were built to last !

If I binned a hard drive in 6 months use, that's a poor quality unit. I am having a look over the weekend and will stick it in the pc to see what happens. Meanwhile, if in doubt, I will get a decent drive as it will come in handy even if I need to replace the DVR.

Thanks Guys, appreciate the advice.

Dan

Wow, I thought they were built to last !

Some of them are; the cheapest units are not.

If you only record with movement detection, you won't be stressing the HD as much as if you record all cameras 24/7.

If you only record with movement detection, you won't be stressing the HD as much as if you record all cameras 24/7.

But couldn't it be even worse for the hard drive only recording when movement is detected as it could potentially be start and stop recording constantly depending on what the camera's are pointing at, obviously the sensitivity can be adjusted?