Why can't I make changes on my external hard drive?

I have an external hard drive that I set up through Windows XP that I can now access through Mac OS X on my MacBook. Unfortunately, I'm not able to delete or make any changes to any of the files through the Finder. Why is that, and can it be changed?

ld3mb wrote:
Thanks everyone. I suppose I'll just reformat for Apple. I need to use it for large files, and I suppose I could survive without editing ablities on Windows.
There's another alternative, format it as exFat, 4G limit does not apply and OSX + Windows will be able to read/write.

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    ld3mb wrote:
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    There's another alternative, format it as exFat, 4G limit does not apply and OSX + Windows will be able to read/write.

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