iPhone stuck in recovery mode & won't restore in iTunes

Desperately need help!

I have a hacked 1st generation iPhone. I've successfully hacked for two separate software upgrades in the past. Unfortunately for this current 3.0 update I'm not as lucky.

Here's what happened:
2 weeks ago my iPhone was acting up... applications would quit on me and then finally the phone went into recovery mode, requesting I connect to iTunes. I was able to find sites that provided steps allowing me to upgrade to 3.0 and rehack my phone.... so I attempted it.

I attempted to restore and update in iTunes... but different errors kept popping up bringing my iPhone back to recovery mode. Finally after the 4th or 5th attempt I was successful. My phone was unlocked and jailbroken... I resumed and followed through to sync my iPhone with iTunes. In the middle of the sync... another error comes up and puts my iPhone back into recovery mode.

Since that last attempt... I can only turn off my iPhone with a hard reset (holding home & sleep/wake button). And when I turn it back on it flashes back-and-forth slowly from the apple logo to the recovery mode screen. iTunes recognizes the device in recovery mode... but when I try to restore it I keep on getting "error 28". I can't seem to find out ANYWHERE what "error 28" means. I've even attempted uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes. I'm worried my iPhone is completely dead.

Can someone please help me?!!! Trust me, I hate that I have to hack the iPhone... but I'm happy with my T-mobile plan and can't afford AT&T's overpriced plans! I'm a Mac user and I LOVE my iPhone and I'm going crazy without it!!!

I'm on a MacBook Pro OSX 10.4.11
Running the latest iTunes 8.2
I've tried both Pwnage 3.0 and Redsnow 0.7.2

I'd appreciate any constructive feedback... THANK YOU =D

Hi Moi!

Thanks for the assistance!... but I've tried many times to restore my iPhone in DFU mode and I still get the "error 28".

I get the error message during restore whether I'm in DFU mode or not... that's what's soooooo frustrating! And I know I'm putting it into DFU mode correctly because I've hacked my phone twice before after updating to past firmwares.

A friend told me I need to figure out how to "fully" restore my iPhone into disk recovery mode. But when I google "restore my iPhone into disk recovery mode"... I get the same instructions about putting my iPhone into DFU mode and connecting to iTunes.

I wish it was my computer... I even tried restoring on my boyfriend's PC and I got the same "error 28" on his iTunes.