How to extract video files from removed hard drive recorded in Amcrest DVR AMDV8M-H5

[Delorean1885]

I would like to review footage from a 4TB HD (WD Purple) removed from an Amcrest DVR (AMDV8M-H5). I understand the footage is not viewable just by connecting it to a computer as the videos files are a proprietary format.

After some searching on this forum, would the Amcrest Smart Player be able to read the files on the removed HDD? I presume they will be organized and date stamped according to the time they were recorded.

Am I on the right track here? Is it that easy or do I need to do anything else?

I'm trying to avoid using the DVR to extract the files from as I installed another HDD and it is currently operational.

[Revo2Maxx]

Personally I don't know. I have other DVR/NVR's that I normally could just put the HDD in to get it to playback if I needed too. Normally when I tested and this was some time ago so might not be the same on the 8M as I do have a 16ch. I just have not ever tried to connect the HDD to PC.. However with that said. I know on another device that I did at one time try to recover some footage from after I removed it from a DVR that was no longer working. When I connected it to a PC with Windows, I couldn't access the HDD. However when I connected it to my Linux server and mounted the HDD I was able to access the files. I forgot the Device had Channel Encryption turned on and was not able to playback the footage. I did buy a second DVR that that was same model, when it detected the HDD asked if I wanted to update the old Encryption with the new format or just Format the HDD and run new Encryption. I just format and started new there wasn't anything at that point that I wanted to retain 6months had gone by..

[Delorean1885]

Thank you for sharing your experience. The footage I have needs to be retrieved so it's important I get this working. I'll try to connect it to my Mac since I understand Mac OS is Linux based so maybe that will help. I don't know anything about Channel Encryption. When I installed a new drive to save the current one, the DVR did not ask me anything about encryption though. I guess worst case scenario I can reconnect to the DVR and try to get the data from it that way but I would like to avoid that.

[SHenryinTU]

Did you ever find any solutions on this?

I have a NV4108E-HS that I did the same thing with; was having frustration trying to get into the thing to get the footage off of it, didn't care to use phone app and dealing with on-board GUI is not ideal. Decided to remove the HD to try to access the files directly. It's 1.8TB.

Using some disk tools to see into the data recorded there. True, Windows just sees it as unallocated space.

Going to try some Linux tools and see what I can see in raw data. If I'm lucky, it's not encrypted. But if it is, I will probably have to put the DVR back together and try to export. I am trying to get all the available footage, so that sounds like a severe pain if it can only be done one USB stick at a time... Perhaps I can get it to recognize an external HD of equitable size?

Will update what I find but would like to know end of your experience / if anyone else was able to pull it off.

Thanks, - Steve in Tucson