Ubuntu – Formatting hard drive failed

I am fairly new to ubuntu, so please don bite my head off if I ask a stupid question.

Anyway, I tried formatting one of my hard drives using the gnome disks tool, and that returned an error.

Error creating file system: Command-line `mkntfs -f -F -L "New Volume" "/dev/sdb"' exited with non-zero exit status 1:
stdout: `Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
'
stderr: `/dev/sdb is entire device, not just one partition.
mkntfs forced anyway.
Error writing to /dev/sdb: Input/output error
Error writing non-resident attribute value.
add_attr_sd failed: Input/output error
Couldn't create root directory: Input/output error
Failed to fsync device /dev/sdb: Input/output error
Warning: Could not close /dev/sdb: Input/output error
' (udisks-error-quark, 0)

I have no idea what this error means, and how I should format my hard drive (IF I am still able to). Does this mean that my hard drive is fried and that I can just throw it out, or can I still save it?

EDIT:

Using sudo fdisk -l returns the following output:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00084eb8

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      499711      248832   83  Linux
/dev/sda2          501758   312580095   156039169    5  Extended
/dev/sda5          501760   312580095   156039168   8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdc: 82.0 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders, total 160086528 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd30c01f2

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048   160083967    80040960    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root: 237.4 GB, 237447938048 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 28868 cylinders, total 463765504 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1: 4294 MB, 4294967296 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 522 cylinders, total 8388608 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

But this does not contain the hard drive I am trying to format, as it seems. The other two devices that show up (/dev/sda and /dev/sdc) are the ones I have combined into one logical view. The third one, or I should say the second one (/dev/sdb) never shows up in this list, but only shows up in the gnome disks utility.
Formatting it from the command line, as well as formatting it from the utillity returns the same result.

EDIT 2:

Using sudo parted -l returned the following:

    Model: ATA MAXTOR STM316021 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size   Type      File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  256MB  255MB  primary   ext2         boot
 2      257MB   160GB  160GB  extended
 5      257MB   160GB  160GB  logical                lvm


Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label                                  

Model: ATA Maxtor 6Y080L0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 82.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  82.0GB  82.0GB  primary


Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root: 237GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop

Number  Start  End    Size   File system  Flags
 1      0.00B  237GB  237GB  ext4


Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu-swap_1: 4295MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop

Number  Start  End     Size    File system     Flags
 1      0.00B  4295MB  4295MB  linux-swap(v1)

As shows, my /dev/sdb device is unrecognized (Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label). This should bring me a bit closer to the solution, if only I knew what to do with this.

EDIT 3:

After some further research, it turns out that my hard drive doesn have a partition table, and I can't create one on the device, because my computer detects it as if it were a zero-length partition.

I'll have to cut my losses and just accept the fact that it's dead.
Thanks anyway for being helpful.