Need help formating a hard drive please

I have an old macbook pro(2006) that recently died. There is power(light on the bottom of the laptop turns on) but the screen remains black.

I like to sell the laptop for parts or repair but I like to know if there was a way to format the hard drive before doing so.

Thank you.

Remove the hard drive and place it in an external SATA USB carrier, attach it to your machine (working machine) and format it that way. You can even use a Windows machine to format the drive since you're going to sell it anyway.

Would this work?
Newegg.com - Vantec NexStar TX 2.5" SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive/SSD Enclosure - Model NST-210S2-BK

Should... but I prefer something like this or this. Practical tool to have in your computer toolkit - will work with any IDE or SATA 2.5", 3.5" or 5.25" drives.

Maybe just bad screen. Hookup ext monitor/tv works?

i wish, but the apple store said it was something with the logic board. it's considered a vintage model so they cant do anything... =(

thank you for all your help