How to format an external hard drive?

[Josef Lowder]

I received a small 38-Gig external harddrive as a gift
and it is apparently formatted with an ntfs file system.

It mounts automatically when I plug it in to my Mandriva
system USB port, and I can read the files that are there,
but I cannot write to it as it gives a message "read only
file system."

So, what would be the best way to format it as a fat 32
so I can plug it in and use it on either my Linux system
or on my xp laptop?

While I have not used it for anything, below are some of the
files that I found on this HD:

Contents of external HD:

/dev/sda1              38G  212M   38G   1% /mnt/New_Volume
/dev/sda1              38G  212M   38G   1% /mnt/New_Volume

# cd /mnt/New_Volume
# ls -ltr
dr-x------  1 root root 0 Feb 23  2006 System Volume Information/
# cd System*
# ls -ltr
dr-x------  1 root root 0 Sep 21 16:19 RECYCLER/
-r--------  2 root root 0 Feb 23  2006 MountPointManagerRemoteDatabase
dr-x------  1 root root 0 Sep 21 16:18
_restore{D5341F9C-33F7-43CF-8BD2-1AE937C9BA1B}/
dr-x------  1 root root 0 Sep 21 16:18 RP471/
-r--------  1 root root 1390 Sep 21 16:19 change.log
# cat change.log
ïÍ«ì\Device\HarddiskVolume9\System Volume
 Information\_restore{D5341F9C-33F7-43CF-8BD2-1AE937C9BA1B}
\RP471\change.logdïÍ«ÿÿÿÿà \Converted2d`ïÍ«ÿÿÿÿà\RECYCLER`¼ïÍ«ÿÿÿÿàx\
RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-947519380-1418259369-3847320399-1006¼ÔïÍ« ÿÿÿÿà\
RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-947519380-1418259369-3847320399-1006\
desktop.iniÔ¼ïÍ«àx\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-947519380-1418259369-3847320399-1006¼`ïÍ«à\
RECYCLER`þïÍ«ÿÿÿÿà
\Converted2\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-947519380-1418259369-3847320399-1006\
De1▒    CONVER~1þ
#
# cd RECYCLER
# ls -ltr
dr-x------  1 root root 0 Sep 21 16:19
S-1-5-21-947519380-1418259369-3847320399-1006/

dr-x------  1 root root 12288 Sep 21 16:19 De1/
-r--------  1 root root    65 Sep 21 16:19 desktop.ini
-r--------  1 root root   820 Sep 21 16:19 INFO2

# cat INFO2
E:\Converted2Ðt'@É@▒
E:\Converted2[root at localhost S-1-5-21-947519380-1418259369-3847320399-1006]
#