IPhone :: 3GS 16GB Does Not Work After I Updated To IOS 5

I have updated my iPhone 3GS 16GB to run on iOS 5 as prompted by the phone. The following evening my phone was docked in my alarm clock on charge and by the morning all it was displaying was a silvery apple symbol in the centre of a black screen. After playing with it for a bit I saw a grey textured background with "iPhone" written in the middle and a sweep bar saying configure. I swept this bar and it asked me to connect to iTunes, if I dont within 5 mins it reverts to the silvery apple symbol. I have attempted to connect it to iTunes to which the same continues despite iTunes displaying my iPhone as being connected. After 48 hours it was working as usual once more and location services activated. The next week it began all over again, only now when I attempt to connect my iPhone to iTunes I am told it cannot connect becasue of an error code 0xE8000001, it then informs me that an unknown error, code -42408 has occurred. I would hate to have lost all my contacts and photos, I do Sync but I dont think I have backed everything up, I realise now from reading other boards that I should have double backed up etc. But at the time it didn't seem from the advice given on the phone it was such a mamoth thing for the phone to do.