Emergency
CCTV recorder won't spin up
If your CCTV recorder is doesn't spin up at all, the most useful thing on this page is above this paragraph, and it is free. What follows is what the fault usually turns out to be, how recoverable this class of failure is, and what it would cost, including the cases we would tell you to take elsewhere.
What this usually turns out to be
Recorders write in a manufacturer's own format and loop over the oldest footage continuously. The clock on a CCTV job is retention, not hardware.
Power supply or adapter failurebetter news
The commonest cause on an external drive by a wide margin, and completely benign. The drive is untouched behind a dead power brick.
Failed USB bridge or interface boardbetter news
The drive never receives the instruction to start. The media itself is healthy.
Burnt or damaged PCBbetter news
The drive's own circuit board has failed, often at the TVS diode after a power surge. The platters are usually untouched.
Seized spindle motor or stiction
The mechanical case. The platter stack cannot turn, and correcting that means opening the drive.
Try this before you pay anyone
Two checks that are safe, free, and settle it more often than you'd think
- Try a different power adapter of exactly the same voltage and at least the same current rating. On an external drive this alone resolves a large share of no-spin cases.
- Try a different cable and a different port, ideally on a different computer. A powered USB hub is worth trying for a bus-powered drive that may simply not be getting enough current.
- Listen closely with the room quiet. Faint spin-up and settle means the motor turns and the fault is elsewhere. Total silence, or a single soft click and nothing, points at the motor.
That is the whole of what is safe to try. Do not tap it, do not shake it, and do not put it in the freezer. All three are folklore, and all three have cost people data that was recoverable beforehand. If it does not spin after a known-good power supply and cable, stop there.
How recoverable this is
Genuinely bimodal, and the split is roughly even. Power, cable, bridge and PCB faults are ordinary work with good outcomes and no cleanroom involved. A seized motor is mechanical work that has to happen before anything can be read at all. Both start with the same free assessment.
What moves it, for your device specifically:
- Whether the drive receives power and attempts to start at all
- Whether the fault is in the enclosure, the PCB, or the drive mechanics
- For a PCB fault, whether the adaptive data on the original board is readable
We will not give you a percentage for your device, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody can know what is recoverable until the media has been imaged and read. What is above describes this class of failure; your drive gets its own answer after an assessment, in writing, at no cost.
What it costs
Quoted after assessment
CCTV, NVR and DVR footage
Proprietary recorder formats parsed directly from the disk. Priced on recorder type, number of disks and the time window needed.
Nothing is charged until you have seen a fixed quote for your actual device and agreed to it, and the assessment that produces it is free.
Not quite your situation?
Pick the device and what it is doing, and this gives you the same answer for that combination instead.