Phone only charges when it's trying to delete all data and settings

I have an iPhone 4 on 5.0.1 jailbroken for about a year now. Recently it quit charging, I thought it was a hardware problem. So I went to delete all settings and data to wipe it clean, lose all my data, and cry (iTunes won't recognize phone either). To my amazement I heard the trusty only beep that my phone was charging when it went to delete, and the only thing that happens is the spinny white circle comes up and my phone does not delete, it just spins into oblivion and charges..then I do a hard reset to turn it back on, and voila...it's charged and ready to go. This is very annoying as you can imagine. I suppose I need to restore in iTunes to just fix it, but iTunes won't recognize the phone either, and I have tried til my fingers are almost bleeding to get into DFU and restore....but it w
Either won't go in dFu, iTunes still doesn't recognize it in DFU, or I am just not doing it right...can somebody please help me!!!! It been like this for 2 weeks....