Hikvision DS-7108N-SN/P NVR Stuck at Boot/Splash Screen Need to Extract Footage

th3bloody9

th3bloody9

Young grasshopper
Jan 22, 2016
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Have a Hikvision DS-7108N-SN/P NVR (firmware V3.0.13) that won't boot past the boot/splash screen. On the connected monitor all you see is the message "Embedded NVR" with Hikvision logo.

I set this NVR up for a family member at a remote location. They had a break in recently and caught footage which is stored on the NVR. They feared the burglars might come back and possibly take the NVR so turned it off (using the correct shut down procedure) and took it home. Now when plugged back in it won't boot past the splash screen :(

There is footage on the NVR we would like to give to the police. Not sure about the best way to try and get it.

Unfortunately I'm approx. 100 miles away so won't be able to physically gets my hands on the NVR for a couple of weeks. I've found a copy of the correct firmware and instructions on how to flash it via TFTP on another thread so I will probably try that.

If the NVR cannot be saved is there any method to manually extract the video directly from the hard drive? I've done a quick search and it seems like Hikvision use their own proprietary file system. Will the hard drive be encrypted too?

The annoying thing is it's been working fine for 9 months and now the one time we actually need something it decides to fail :angry:
 
Finally got my hands on the NVR… I think it's safe to say I found the source of the issue, the PCB has some nasty water damage (see attached pic).

Weird that it was somehow working up until it was switched off.

I don't suppose anybody knows whether putting the hard drive in another Hikvision NVR will allow me to access the footage? either if I buy the same NVR again (or possibly another Hikivsion model?). I believe I read a comment somewhere where someone in a similar situation (bricked NVR) put the Hard drive in a replacement NVR and was able to playback footage already on the the hard drive.
 

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th3bloody9 said:
Finally got my hands on the NVR… I think it's safe to say I found the source of the issue, the PCB has some nasty water damage (see attached pic).

Weird that it was somehow working up until it was switched off.

I don't suppose anybody knows whether putting the hard drive in another Hikvision NVR will allow me to access the footage? either if I buy the same NVR again (or possibly another Hikivsion model?). I believe I read a comment somewhere where someone in a similar situation (bricked NVR) put the Hard drive in a replacement NVR and was able to playback footage already on the the hard drive.
Click to expand...

What was the source of the water?
 
looney2ns said:
What was the source of the water?
Click to expand...

I don't know to be honest, but the NVR was on a table-top in a hayloft type room of a farm building. I was told it was completely water-tight but I'm guessing it's not. Probably some drips from the roof during heavy rainfall :(
 
As a last ditch effort I cleaned up the water damage as best I could and tried flashing firmware via TFTP (connected via switch), seems to connect correctly but never finishes the last step shown in the examples ('system update completed' message) even when left for 15min+. It gets this far:

tftp.jpg

Still sticks on boot splash screen when turned on (see attached image).
 

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With that damage I'm amazed there is any sign of activity.
Though the damage may be limited to the POE circuitry.

With the DS-7108N-SN model number it is presumably not an International version, so the EN/ML firmware from here isn't likely to be accepted, or could cause a bootloop : DOWNLOAD PORTAL

However - at the expense of dealing with CN menus, it looks like the stock firmware is here, 8th section down :
海康威视是以视频为核心的物联网解决方案提供商
 
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alastairstevenson said:
With that damage I'm amazed there is any sign of activity.
Though the damage may be limited to the POE circuitry.

With the DS-7108N-SN model number it is presumably not an International version, so the EN/ML firmware from here isn't likely to be accepted, or could cause a bootloop : DOWNLOAD PORTAL

However - at the expense of dealing with CN menus, it looks like the stock firmware is here, 8th section down :
海康威视是以视频为核心的物联网解决方案提供商
Click to expand...

Hi Alastair, Thanks for stopping by. Yes it was a Chinese version with hacked firmware. As far as I know the firmware I tried loading was meant to be the correct Chinese->English one I needed (found it on this forum). Also just tried the stock Chinese one you linked (many thanks), but had the same result as before.

Going to purchase a replacement NVR (exact same model) and fingers crossed the existing footage on the hard drive can be viewed/extracted.
 
th3bloody9 said:
I don't suppose you would know whether any Hikvision NVR will work?
Click to expand...
I'm sorry - but I don't know if the HDD file system layout is the same across different NVR models.
Last time I looked - a while back - it looked like a proprietary arrangement that would not yield a usable result when hooked up to something like a Linux environment,
 
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alastairstevenson said:
I'm sorry - but I don't know if the HDD file system layout is the same across different NVR models.
Last time I looked - a while back - it looked like a proprietary arrangement that would not yield a usable result when hooked up to something like a Linux environment,
Click to expand...

Sorry to bother you again Alastair, but I cannot seem to source the exact model (DS-7108N-SN/P) NVR from a UK seller (they literally just ran out of stock). I can find this model though: DS-7108NI-E1/8P I believe it's just the international version of the same NVR? Do you think this would be likely to enable me to view the existing footage?

Or do you think I would be better ordering the DS-7108N-SN/P from a Chinese seller.
 
th3bloody9 said:
I cannot seem to source the exact model (DS-7108N-SN/P) NVR from a UK seller (they literally just ran out of stock). I can find this model though: DS-7108NI-E1/8P I believe it's just the international version of the same NVR? Do you think this would be likely to enable me to view the existing footage?
Click to expand...
I believe these are 2 different model types. And I couldn't find any on eBay apart from via China.
But the key thing will be whether Hikvision use the same HDD layout scheme across different models.

Out of curiosity I added a small HDD to my spare 7816, let it record for a while, then with dd extracted the first gigabyte of data to inspect.
It looked like a b@stardised version of NTFS.
But then I wrote zeros over the first gigabyte and did some more recording.
On inspection it seems to be a completely custom HDD layout that's being used.
The 'format' that the NVR does is quite minimal, it just writes a small template to the area that will hold a directory of contents, leaving remnants of the original NTFS layout in place.

So if it's a custom arrangement, does that mean Hikvision are likely to use the same approach across various models?
I suspect so, apart from maybe the bigger models with RAID and other features where I'd expect some open-source solution would make more sense.
I'd be tempted to try the disc in a similar, but not the same, model, after disabling all recording schedule, and cameras too.
But if the recording is likely to be of value or sensitive, clone the disc first.
 
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alastairstevenson said:
I believe these are 2 different model types. And I couldn't find any on eBay apart from via China.
But the key thing will be whether Hikvision use the same HDD layout scheme across different models.
Click to expand...

Many thanks for your help. This is the one I found on eBay, the listing is a complete mess though - the item specifics mention DS-7108NI-E1/8P, but the description mentions DS-7108NI-SN (however afaik that's a non POE model and title clearly states POE), also the second image they used is of a Dahua NVR :wtf:

Also found it listed on Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hikvision-Channel-DS-7108NI-E1-Recorder-output/dp/B0711742MC/

Good advice on cloning the disc. I found this forum thread which seems to suggest Hikvision use a proprietary filesystem called HIKFAT
 
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So went ahead and purchased a DS-7108NI-E1/8P from Amazon. Very pleased to say that I put the hard drive in and can access all the old footage from the damaged NVR :)

Also it seems the firmware is better on this international version (not sure if it's just because its a newer firmware), the menus seem nicer and some Dahua cameras worked right away using ONVIF (whereas with the DS-7108N-SN/P I couldn't get them to work unless I manually added the RTSP feed - which resulted in garbled audio for the camera). Noted that the mainboard has a slightly different layout to the DS-7108N-SN/P.

All in all very happy, especially considering it only cost roughly the same I paid for the firmware hacked Chinese DS-7108N-SN/P (granted could have got it cheaper if buying from a chinese seller).
 
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I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but did you by chance attempt to install ivms 4200 + the storage server option? I remember from playing around with the storage server that it wanted an entire drive to use (vs a folder/designated disk space) and it wanted to format it (assuming with Hik's proprietary format). It seems somewhat likely (based on this behavior) that you could attach the NVR's drive to a system with ivms4200 + storage server and it may actually see the drive + be able to access the data.
 
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moped said:
I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but did you by chance attempt to install ivms 4200 + the storage server option? I remember from playing around with the storage server that it wanted an entire drive to use (vs a folder/designated disk space) and it wanted to format it (assuming with Hik's proprietary format). It seems somewhat likely (based on this behavior) that you could attach the NVR's drive to a system with ivms4200 + storage server and it may actually see the drive + be able to access the data.
Click to expand...

No I never thought to try that, sounds like a good idea though. If I get chance I might test this method out as it would be handy to know.
 
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