Dowson H.264 DVR : Locked out lost password

Hi, I am trying to resurrect a 4-years since last-used Howson 16-channel DVR for which the owner has lost/can’t remember the login-in password. This was a machine he used in his bar before being told he needed to store 30 days+ to comply with licensing regulations. So instead of asking me to add more HDD storage he just went and bought another DVR with a bigger HDD.

Cut a long story short, the bigger DVR is “in custody” since February, and they won’t give it back….

So out comes the old DVR, hoping to recommission for next Monday ….

I know he used the “admin” account, which I would have advised against, but any passwords he thought might have been used : no-go.

I want to reset it to factory defaults, reformat the hard drive (actually need to put a bigger one in, but that’s not the issue), and start over.

Now I know it’s a “security” machine, but let’s be honest it was used over 4 years ago, so any video footage on it will by now be pretty useless.

I cannot get into the system, the admin log-in password is never correct. So far I have tried :-

Factory Default passwords found on the net, even for other machines …. X
Passwords he thought might be …. X
Passwords generated from the machine’s date with several Password Generation apps (superpassword, superpassword2, superpassword3, Dahua-Password, time_pwd_1.1, excel spreadsheet password-reset-.xls)
Removing the coin-cell battery for 20 minutes, and the date gets reset to 17/03/2014, so I know it has lost all volatile data, but the machine name and IP address remains.
I have tried to go in the back door with (DVR) DeviceManage, but it cannot find the DVR on the network, even though I can ping it, and we are all on the 192.168.1.xxx domain.

There has to be a way to factory reset this DVR, but I have run out of ideas.

Anyone know of any ways I haven’t yet tried ?

TUIMA