3g-3.1.2-5.11.07 stuck in recovery loop

chimed in on another thread, but thought i'd try my own.

3g 3.1.2 & 05.11.07 jb/ul with blackra1n, been working perfectly for months and just suddenly went to restore mode. shows me the apple logo, then goes straight to the "connnect to itunes" screen.

I've been trying to restore both from recovery and in dfu mode, but it didnt make any difference. tried a few different ipsw files (stock, 2 or 3 custom restores and two that i made with pwnagetool) and always get the same result....itunes says it's preparing to restore, then as soon as the progress bar appears under the apple logo on the phone, i get the same "iphone cannot be restored. unknown error (28)". then it's back to the "connect to itunes" screen.

i havent been able to get irecovery to work yet. i read in another thread where someone had luck jb'ing multiple times. no luck with that after 3 attempts ,but i'll keep trying.

any help would be greatly appreciated.
imran

please tell me i'm not going to have to update to 3.1.3 and sell it...

i've tried at least 6 different ipsw files, a couple of which have been files i made with pwnage tool. always stops right when i get to the status bar on restore then gives me "iphone cannot be restored. unknown error (28)"

so here is what i get when i run iRecovery:

iRecovery - Recovery Utility
by wEsTbAeR-- and Tom3q
Got USB
=======================================
:: iRain for n82ap, Copyright 2009, Apple Inc.
:: BUILD_TAG: iBoot-636.66
:: BUILD_STYLE: RELEASe
=======================================

[FTL:MSG] Apple NAND Driver (AND) RO
[NAND] Device ID 0x3ed5d72c
[NAND] BANKS_TOTAL 2
[NAND] BLOCKS_PER_BANK 8192
[NAND] PAGES_PER_BANK 1048576ering recovery mode, starting command prompt
ER_SPARE 216
[FTL:MSG] FIL_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] BUF_Init [OK]
[FTL:MSG] FPart Init [OK]
read old style signature 0x43303035 (line:371)
[FTL:MSG] VFL Register [OK]
[FTL:MSG] VFL Init [OK]
[VFL:ERR] _LoadVFLCxt(line:769) fail bank 1!
[VFL:ERR] _LoadVFLCxt(wBank:1)(line 1273) fail!
[WMR:ERR] VFL_Open failed
WMR_BEEP
NAND FTL failed initialisation
Boot Failure Count: 0 Panic Fail Count: 1
Enering recovery mode, starting command prompt
(Recovery) iPhone$

Click to expand...

so does this confirm that i have a hardware problem with the NAND? time to buy another iphone?

i cant get iRecovery to do much else (printenv,set auto-boot true, saveenv commands just return to the next line) except "reboot".