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CCTV cameras are widely used as a robust security measure and to monitor the surroundings round the clock. They can be installed outside a house, in shops or offices, at a local street corner, and in other places for recording the activities of people. To store CCTV footage requires a huge amount of storage space. As most storage devices have a limited capacity, they’re usually set up to automatically delete the old footage to make space for the new one. Usually, the CCTV footage lasts from 3 months to a year, based on the setup.
So what happens when you need CCTV footage that was deleted or overwritten automatically after a particular period of time or lost/deleted due to any other reason? Is it possible to recover such deleted or overwritten CCTV videos?
Certainly, you can recover deleted or overwritten CCTV footage. However, you need to act fast to maximize the chances of recovery. If the CCTV footage is just deleted or partially overwritten, then you can easily recover the footage. Below, we’ll be discussing the methods to help you recover deleted or overwritten CCTV footage or videos with ease.
Methods to Recover Overwritten CCTV Footage
The first thing to look for is the backup. If you’ve taken a backup of the footage on any additional storage drive, then you can simply restore the footage from that drive. If you don’t have a backup, then follow the below methods to recover the deleted or overwritten CCTV footage.
1. Use Video Recovery Software to Recover the CCTV Footage
You can use reliable video recovery software to recover deleted or overwritten CCTV footage. Stellar Photo Recovery is one such software that can recover deleted or lost images and video files from any storage device. This software supports file formats for all popular brands of CCTV cameras. It can even recover videos from hard drives with up to 6 TB capacity.
It is a DIY software and can help you recover videos from a storage device in just a few simple steps. Here are the steps to recover CCTV footage using the software:
- Download and install Stellar Photo Recovery on your computer.
- Connect the drive to your computer where your CCTV footage was stored.
- Launch the software, select the drive, and then click Scan.
- The software will start scanning the drive. If you can’t find the desired footage after the scan, you can use the Deep Scan option to perform a comprehensive scan of the selected drive.
- After the scan, the software will show all the recovered videos. You can click on any video to see its preview.
- Then, select the footage you wish to recover and click on the Recovery button.
- Specify the location or folder where you want to save the recovered CCTV footage and click on the Save button.
- The desired CCTV file will be saved at the specified location.
2. Contact Data Recovery Experts
Alternatively, you can contact Data Recovery Lab-Services which can help you recover overwritten CCTV footage. They have expert technicians who can recover data even from complex data loss situations. They recover data in ISO-certified data recovery labs to ensure the safety and security of data.
Bonus Tip
CCTV footage can be recorded and saved on a local hard drive, a cloud server, or an offsite server in digital video recorders (DVRs) or network video recorders (NVRs). Since the CCTV cameras don’t have their own storage, all the videos are recorded in digital formats that use a proprietary operating system to maintain a backup.
Fortunately, most IP cameras and network DVRs can upload video clips or image snapshots on an FTP or SMTP server. As a result, you can maintain a backup of your CCTV footage remotely and avert the possibility of losing the videos due to overwriting or any other reason. Moreover, you can configure the DVR/NVR to record CCTV footage to a cloud recording service that supports FTP/SMTP.
Conclusion
Above we have mentioned the methods to recover deleted or overwritten CCTV videos. You can use Stellar Photo Recovery to recover lost or deleted photos, videos, and audio files of all popular formats, including JPEG, RAW, TIFF, PNG, MP4, MOV, FLV, MKV, MP3, OGG, and others. You can also contact professional data recovery services to recover overwritten CCTV footage. However, it is always suggested to create a backup of the CCTV footage on an additional storage drive to avoid loss due to overwriting or any other reason.
Image Credit: Photo by Miłosz Klinowski on Unsplash