Can I format a hard drive on a new Digital or Network Video Recorder? When do I need to format a hard drive?

We recommend formatting a hard drive when installing a new hard drive on your DVR or NVR recorder, when the hard drive has errors, or when the hard drive is full and doesn’t have space for recording.

Formatting a hard drive while setting up a new DVR or NVR recorder

Navigate to Start Wizard >> Disk

If your DVR or NVR recorder came with a pre-installed hard drive disk, it would appear on the Disk screen.

Check the ‘State‘ column; if it’s ‘Normal,’ click Next. Otherwise, click in the HDD checkbox and then ‘Format HDD.’ We recommend having ‘Overwrite‘ set to ‘Auto.’

Enter the DVR’s password to confirm; once the HDD is formatted, its State will turn to ‘Normal.’

Adding NetHDD requires a file server on your LAN with NFS or SMB enabled, NFS requires an IP and Directory on the file server, and limiting disk size is optional.

Formatting a hard drive if the HDD is full

When the DVR, NVR recorder’s hard drive disk is full and has no more space to record, you must format it and set a new Overwrite mode.

Navigate to the left bottom corner of the screen to access Setup. Proceed to the main menu, followed by Device >> Disk > Disk.

Tick the checkbox of the hard drive in the first column, proceed to Overwrite tab, and select the mode you need. For example, if you choose Auto mode, the DVR will continue recording when the hard drive is full (out of space to record).

After you select the Overwrite mode, click on the Format HDD tab and Apply button.

When you have a pop-up window (picture 4) below with the option of formatting a hard drive, select one and click the OK tab.

Note that older DVRs and NVRs may not have this feature, so all the recorded footage on the hard drive will be erased.

Click OK on the Notice pop-up window ( picture 5) to confirm it, which will be followed by displaying the progress bar (picture 6)

Once the HDD formatting is complete, press the OK tab (picture 7)