initializing a blank hard disk

I have a blank hard disk - no partitions, no file system, no label, no nothing - that I need to reuse. In a shell script, how do I get it to where I can write data to it again?

I've looked at the man parted page, but I can't tell which command to run, or which sequence of commands.

Thanks.

What is the specific operating system?

sorry - kubuntu 9.10