Questions, not a score

What the planner does

The recovery planner generates a first-pass inventory checklist from your selections. It runs entirely in your browser after the page loads. It does not read an archive, contact an AI model, query an external database or estimate a commercial value.

Inputs

• Storage formats: files and documents; database exports; tape and offline media; audio, image and video; or unknown. You may select more than one.
• Documentation: unknown or none located; some records or agreements; or a catalog, dictionaries and agreements.
• Access: unknown or untested; readable; missing credentials or keys; damaged or unreadable media; or systems retiring soon.

No selection of a storage format is treated as unknown. Selecting unknown alongside another format adds an unidentified-material task; it does not discard what you do know.

How the checklist is assembled

The output uses fixed rules in this order:

1. A missing-credentials, damaged-media or retiring-system answer places the corresponding access priority at the start.
2. Every checklist includes authority, retention and legal-hold questions, followed by a source inventory task.
3. One task is added for each selected known storage format, in the order files, databases, tape and media. Unknown material receives its own identification task.
4. One documentation task is selected: verify apparently complete records, map partial coverage, or locate missing documentation.
5. Readable material receives a limited condition-test task. Unknown access receives an access-confirmation task. The other access answers already have their priority task.
6. Every checklist ends with provenance, restrictions, personal-data questions and review before sharing.

The displayed action count is simply the number of generated tasks. There are no weights, thresholds, readiness percentages or predictions. Selecting more formats may make the list longer; that does not mean the archive is less ready.

What “documented” and “readable” do not prove

The planner accepts the selections you make without verification. A catalog may be incomplete, an agreement may not cover a proposed use, and a readable sample may not represent the whole archive. Even the most complete answers retain ownership and privacy questions.

The checklist never clears rights, confirms recoverability, authorizes copying, or overrides a retention duty. Damaged media, disputed rights and sensitive records can require specialist review.

Privacy and downloads

Answers and generated tasks stay in page memory. Reloading the page or choosing “Clear answers” discards them. A checklist download is created locally as a plain text file. It is not uploaded or automatically attached to an accession inquiry.

The site separately captures first-landing campaign parameters and the referring page in session storage for an inquiry, as described in the privacy notice. That attribution contains no planner answers.

Basis and maintenance

These rules translate the site’s inventory, condition, provenance and preparation workflow into explicit questions. They are editorial prompts, not a validated recovery model or a substitute for professional assessment.

Rules revision: 26 October 2026. Report an unclear or inappropriate prompt to hello@dormantdatapartners.com, naming the input selections and resulting task. See the editorial policy for review status and corrections.