Tesla Dashcam & Sentry Mode Footage Recovery: Getting Clips Back From a Corrupted USB
Tesla writes Dashcam and Sentry Mode clips as standard MP4 files to a FAT32/exFAT USB drive, stored in TeslaCam/SavedClips and TeslaCam/SentryClips. When clips go missing, the drive corrupts, or the touchscreen shows 'USB drive not usable,' the footage is recoverable far more often than people expect — provided you stop the car from recording over it. This guide covers the immediate steps after an incident, how Tesla stores the four camera angles, computer-side file-carving recovery, and the critical mistake of reformatting the drive in the car.
Key Topics Covered
Stopping continued recording from overwriting clips
TeslaCam RecentClips vs SavedClips vs SentryClips layout
Recovering MP4 files on a computer with a card reader