Plugging in an Old External Hard Drive

[LaidbackLukeFan325]

I have a 250 GB external hard drive lying around my house that's about 4-5 years old and I'm looking to start using it again. The last time I used it, I recall copying some files to it from an old computer, which may have had some viruses on it. I'd like to reformat the drive completely, erasing any virus that would potentially be on it. However, I am hesitant to connect the drive to my current computer because I don't want to risk getting infected from it.

So I guess my questions boil down these:
1. How can I go about clearing this drive to clear it 100% of any viruses/malware that might be on it?
2. How can I clear this drive without potentially infecting my computer in the process? Or should I just reformat it using someone elses Mac (I use Windows 7) and then plug it back into my computer and reformat it again?
3. If possible is there a safe way to see what files are on this drive without potentially infecting my computer? (I'm 99.9% sure anything on this drive is either completely useless to me or already present on my current laptop so blindly reformatting it is no big deal)

I already have SandBoxie installed on my computer if using a Sandbox would help. I also currently own, and use, Norton 360 and have MalwareBytes installed on my computer.

Thanks for the help.

[Salmon Trout]

A number of Linux live CDs come with disk partitioning tools which can remove, create, resize and format partitions. GParted is the name of one such tool, and there is a live CD specifically made for this task.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

It says on that page it is for x86 computers, so you may need to have access to one. Also there are such tools on many Linux bootable CDs including Koppix, Ark Linux Live, Kubuntu, MEPIS, NimbleX, and others.

[SuperDave]

Make sure your AV is up-to-date, slave the drive to your computer, right-click on the drive and choose Format.