I saw that climbing up the metal work.
I'd take the gate down and get that lizard to protect the front door. Keep it in a little house at face height. Any unwanted intruders can have their faces eaten.
First thing I would check is the Seagate Barracuda HD. Which I understand is not recommended for a NVR surveillance drive. Have you a proper surveillance drive you could swap as a test?
Oh not good news. Shame they got electrically damaged. Be interesting to find out what damage was caused, when you investigate. Perhaps they may still work with 12 volts DC rather than POE.
Sounds like the mechanism has come misaligned by some means, perhaps as said before from the factory that's inherently faulty. Could take apart and attempt a fix? Or try the camera at another location and get another for your front door.
I'll have couple. Easily resolved by lowering the resolution output to 4 MP for an ideal ratio for the 1/1.8 sensor.
I'll get them whilst I'm out food shopping and report back.
The cable shown on your picture, should be black not grey. Hopefully this assists you connecting the camera, to the world wide web rather than the NVR thing.