Erm, excuse me, but you're not very clear to me.

I started out with stat(), but got "odd" results, so switched to ls using the -u and -c switches.

What are "odd" results? Did they not give the same results as the "ls" command?

On three servers, no files show up in my report as being untouched for more than six months. On another, only one file "failed" the test.

What consitutes a failed test?

For one thing, when I log onto a server and just do a vanilla "l" of a directory--say, /usr/local/...--I get file dates ranging back as far as 1997.

Which says nothing about access time.

I use JDNs to compare the dates. On the server with a 92% failure rate, nearly all files had the same access and modification dates. This led me to suspect cloning, but since that just creates a binary image, the dates should be those on the master drive, not the date of the cloning, or so I've been told.

What's JDNs? What's cloning? What's a "master drive"? Do you by any chance make backups? If so, how, and have you ever restored them?

Which OS and file system are you using?

Joost