Erasing a Linux Hard Drive In Windows

[genhandgrenade42]

My main computer is running Windows Vista, and for a while I was experimenting with Linux (Ubuntu) installed on an external harddrive. At the moment I've found that I really don't use it all that much, so I wanted to free up the space. Unfortunately, Windows doesn't appear to recognize that there is a hard drive there. Does anyone know how I might go about this? I don't need to scavenge any files off the drive, just a clean wipe so I can start fresh.

[SuperDave]

Do you see any lights on the external drive? Can you try it on another computer?

[patio]

I'm impressed you were able to set up the external HDD to boot Ubuntu...not an easy chore.
Since Linux uses a bootloader that hides better than most i would use the Linux version of FDisk to do this.
Then partition and format it in the file system you want and you should be good to go.
Last time i did this with normal tools it wouldn't get rid of GRUB/