OK, I guess I am using the wrong terms. Here's what I want:

I want to make an exact duplicate of a tape. Not a "clone" in the 
technical Networker sense, but a 2nd tape, with all the same data on the 
tape. A bit-for-bit copy, same vol id, same EVERYTHING. (that's what I 
meant by "clone")

I then want to be able to use this tape, to do CFI recovers ("nsrck -L7") 
from, rather than the original tape, which we will keep offsite, safely. 

I want to keep the duplicate tape here onsite, and do my recovers with it. 
What I am hoping for is that when I do a recover of that sort, NW will see 
the mounted, local tape as the source to do said recovers, and then just 
use it. Then, when I am done doing all the recovers I need, I can 
physically destroy the tape, without changing anything in the NW media 
database - so NW will think it still exists .. and it does, but now only 
offsite. NW won't care, as long as the media matches what NW thinks it is 
(and being a bit-for-bit duplicate, it *should* match perfectly)

Possible? If so, how?

> On Monday 18 March 2013 11:38:53 Michael Leone wrote:
> > > As the target for a clone needs to be a clone type pool there is no 
> > > way you can clone
> > > to the same pool. The way to do it is to create a BootstrapClone 
> > > pool, label the target tape into
> > > that and do:
> > > 
> > > nsrclone -b "BootstrapClone" <source volume>
> > 
> > AH, I see. Good point, thank you.
> > 
> > So, supposing I need to do a "nsrck -L7" in the future, will I be able 
to 
> > use this tape to read the CFI from? (that's what I want to happen. I 
don't 
> > want to have to recall the original from offsite, in order to do a 
"nsrck 
> > -L7").
> > 
> > Or will the "nsrck -L7" look *only* for the original source volume?
> > 
> > I want to have a copy here, because I will probably need it frequently 
in 
> > the near future, but I don't want to have to recall it from offsite; 
do my 
> > "nsrck -L7"; determine what volumes I further need; then have to do a 
2nd 
> > recall of the actual data volumes. But I want a copy offsite, for 
safety's 
> > sake.
> > 
> > Will doing this allow me to do what I want to do?
> 
> It will if your Networker is new enough.
> V8.x now automatically prefers anything
> that is mounted or even nearline and have the right saveset. The 
> pool doesn't matter at all.
> If you are running an older version you will have to mark the 
> original saveset instance
> as suspect to force networker to prefer (and allow) that.
> 
> Best
> Dag
>