If you are using the same board connector as was in that thread, and some others, here is how I've got that UART cable hooked up:
The white cable is power - make sure it doesn't touch anything.
I've found this to be a very useful facility when messing with the 7816N - bricked it loads of times, and recovered it loads via the serial console.
Some hints from my own experience:
The 3.2.1 firmware is a lot different in appearance, 'prettier', and a bit better in functionality, than earlier versions. Better layout too.
It has a useful 'digital zoom magnifier' on playback.
The camera smart events support is much expanded.
If you are used to doing things via telnet, it's by default not available.
And the serial console dumps you in a 'protected shell' where you can do almost nothing useful.
My 7816N-E2 is language=2
The interface stayed English only if it was firmware upgraded from the web GUI (not
TFTP) from an already English interface. This translates the configuration as part of the update. Using TFTP resets the config, and the interface is Chinese.
After web GUI upgrade to 3.2.1 it worked OK with cameras with language=2 and 1
Start at 2015-05-02 14:18:40
Serial NO :1620150203AARR503146794WCVU
V3.2.1, build 150304
softBase:/Platform/trunk:0
KernelVersion: V1.0.0 build 000000
dspSoftVersion: V5.0 build 150213
codecVersion: V5.0 build 150213
hardwareVersion = 0x0
encodeChans = 0
decodeChans = 16
alarmInNums = 0
alarmOutNums = 0
flashsize = 0x0
ramSize = 0x40000000
networksNums = 1
language = 2
devType
S-7816N-E2
bootPartition = 1
randomCode =
What I strongly suggest if you think about upgrading is to back up your existing firmware so you have a way back should you wish.
All you need is a copy of mtdblock2 in the as-delivered state. But copy mtdblock0 and 1 also.
The easiest way is if you can add a NAS destination via the GUI. It does not need to be formatted.
Something like this for an NFS mount.
Use 'mount' to find the mount point, then something like:
cd /mnt/tnfs01
umount /dev/mtdblock2
cat /dev/mtdblock2 > mtdblock2_orig
mount /dev/mtdblock2 /home/hik
You could also use TFTP, something like
TFTP -p -l mtdblock2_orig <IP address of TFTP server>
And the same for mtdblock0 & 1, though these don't need unmounted.
Then you can either at a later date 'cat' the mtdblock2_orig' back where it came from, or you can create new firmware using @
wzhick really useful tool Hiktools to get a digicap.dav that the web GUI and TFTP recovery is happy with.
Also - make a backup copy of the NVR configuration, and the camera settings, via the maintenance menu, with the filename including the associated firmware version. You can't restore configurations across firmware versions.
That way - you can put the whole thing back exactly how it was before the firmware update if you ever need to do so.
And for info - but I'm not going to go into detail here, it's a bit techy complicated - again with the useful Hiktools to create / customise the firmware, telnet can be reactivated, and the 'psh Busybox protected shell' can be inhibited too, leaving just as good access to the internals as before.
Good luck - but be careful.
