i have an unlocked jailbroken 3g iphone and last night my battery died and when i came home to charge it the charging screen came on so i tried turning on my iphone and the apple logo comes on for about a min and it goes into a black screen. It stays there for about another min then it shuts off and does the same thing. When i charged it it just goes right to that screen and the charging screen does not come on. How do i get this to go away and get my iphone to turn on?

I Think you have to do a clean restore to 3.0.1 and then jailbrake unlock.

When you connect your iPhone to the computer, and if iTunes doesn't recognize the phone, you have to put into DFU and start from there.

is there a way to do it without having me to lose all my stuff on the phone?

Plug the iPhone into the computer and open iTunes.

If iTunes recognize the phone do a backup and you'll be ok. Don't forget to manualy extract the photos taken with your iphone camera, and that you'll loose your SMS history.

If iTunes doesn't recognize the iPhone than you get no chance. You have to do a restore and you'll ending up loosing your info.