Hikvision NVR IP setup weirdness

I swapped out a friend's Hikvision NVR that lost it's network port in a thunderstorm, I exported the config to USB and restored it to the new one, but even though it reported a successful restore only one of about 15 cameras came up. I noticed some cameras were reported "not found" and other ones needed username and password corrected. Along the way I discovered a dead switch that was handling 8 cameras, so I replaced it. The LAN setup has a 192.168.0.X IP, I connected that cable to my laptop to see if it had internet etc, it did. The NVR DHCP server indicates that it uses 192.168.254.X for the cameras. What's odd is that it doesn't connect to any cameras. In the previous config on the dead NIC NVR the cameras were at .0.X and in the "online device list" below the "Cameras" list on the new NVR there are a bunch of cameras with green checkmarks with .0.X IPs, but when I deleted the red X .254.X cameras in the list and added the ones from the "connected devices" list with the green checkmarks they show up on the cameras list but the IP's are now .254.X, and don't connect. If I try to change the NVR DHCP to 192.168.0.X ( I tried a ton of numbers) I get an error message that it conflicts with the network settings. I don't understand how it could "see" .0.X cameras, but not add them to the camera list. How do I set this NVR up to connect to those green checked cameras in the connected devices list? Any pointers would be appreciated. In the manual it looks like you can specify that the added cameras use the general user and PW that the NVR uses, I'm hoping that will allow me to get past the user/pw error they are throwing once I get them on the Cameras list.