I have just bought a USB 160 gig HD to backup to using Ghost v10. It came formated FAT 32 ....do I need to reformat to NTFS?

No, but FAT32 limits you to 2gb file sizes.  It is better (assuming you are using Windows XP) to reformat it NTFS.

Be sure your USB drive is plugged in and on.
Right click My Computer
Manage
Maximize the window
Select Disk Management
Verify you can see the USB drive
Right click on the USB drive and partition you want to modify,  and one of the options is Format.
(I'm assuming there is nothing on your USB drive yet).

CAUTION:  be sure you are selecting the correct drive!!  Reformatting is unreversible.

Thanks Ghost....that is what I thought, but not being an expert I wanted validation...thanks again

I forgot to mention that you should test your Ghost 10 Recovery CD to make sure that it recognizes your external USB drive when you boot from the Ghost CD.
There are some issues with Ghost 10 not recognizing some external usb's under some circumstances.

See this thread for more info:
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1131831389

Let us know if your Recovery CD works for you.  Thanks.

A description of the benefits of NTFS as compared to FAT may be found in the Microsoft article "NTFS vs. FAT: Which Is Right for You?" found at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/russel_october01.mspx

Ghost4me

Just to clarify--I believe FAT 32 and FAT 16 have a 4 GB file size limit--it's DOS that has the 2 GB file size limit.

NightOwl wrote on Dec 14^th, 2005 at 4:23pm:

Ghost4me Just to clarify--I believe FAT 32 and FAT 16 have a 4 GB file size limit--it's DOS that has the 2 GB file size limit.

Nightowl, good point.  Actually, it's not only DOS that has the 2gb limit.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp

Size Limitations in NTFS and FAT File Systems
Each file system supports a maximum volume size, file size, and number of files per volume. Because FAT16 and FAT32 volumes are limited to 4 GB and 32 GB respectively, you must use NTFS to create volumes larger than 32 GB. If you use FAT16 or FAT32 in computers that start multiple operating systems, you must note the following size limitations:

FAT volumes smaller than 16 MB are formatted as FAT12.

FAT16 volumes larger than 2 GB are not accessible from computers running MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, and many other operating systems. This limitation occurs because these operating systems do not support cluster sizes larger than 32 KB, which results in the 2 GB limit.

In theory, FAT32 volumes can be about 8 terabytes; however, the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP Professional can format is 32 GB. Therefore, you must use NTFS to format volumes larger than 32 GB. However, Windows XP Professional can read and write to larger FAT32 volumes formatted by other operating systems.