How would I go about getting another instance of the wallet so that I can start fresh. I have the current wallet file backed up in case I end up remembering the passphrase. Can two wallets exist independently of one another?
Double check you have a backup of the wallet.dat file. Ensure the client is closed, then delete the wallet.dat in the bitcoin datadir. Restart the bitcoin client and it will produce a new wallet.dat. Right away BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE
a) encrypt the wallet
b) ensure you can decrypt the wallet
c) make an offline backup of the passphrase
d) make a backup of the encrypted wallet.dat file