Unable to Restore 3GS - HELP!

Yesterday my phone crashed and when it finally turned back on it kindly told me that "Activation is required - Please plug into itunes".

Today i finally got home and plugged it into itunes. It pops up and tells me the phone needs to be restored and it boots the phone into recovery mode. When i try and restore it, the phone comes up with the apple logo and a loading bar and all seems to be going well until about 2 thirds of the way through when its on the "Restoring iPhone firmware" part. It comes up with an error saying "The iphone could not be restored. An unknown error occured (1)".

The phone is not jailbroken and never has been. I am using the latest version of itunes and windows 7. I have used different usb ports and different computers all to the same result. I have had this phone since the day the 3GS was released. Has it finally given up the ghost?

James

 

nope! I was driving along using co pilot as a sat nav and suddenly it lost all phone signal and then crashed. Was sat securely on my dashboard!