Recovering data on Samsung Galaxy S II GT-I9100P without USB connection Samsung Galaxy S II GT-I9100P only goes as far as the "Samsung" logo, and remains there.  How can I backup the data on the phone before attempting get the phone working again?  

I have attempted the instructions here: 
Rooting Samsung Galaxy S II GT-i9100

It completed the "installing update", but after the reboot it got stuck on the "Android is upgrading starting apps" screen.  I waited for about 10 minutes before powering it off and on.  It now just gets as far as the Samsung screen and continues there, as before.  

Kies doesn't connect to the device, hence why I assumed I'd need to do this without USB connection, perhaps via the memory card as per the link above.  

Could clockworkmod help?

I have now: 


accessed the Android stock recovery, and wiped the cache. 
accessed the Android stock recovery, and installed "CWM-SuperSU-v0.97.zip" via the external SD card.  
accessed the Android stock recovery, and installed "recovery-clockwork-4.0.1.5-galaxys2.zip" via the external SD card.  This gave me access to the CWM recovery menu. 


From the CWM recovery menu, I accessed the "backup and restore" option, which allowed me to attempt a backup with Nandroid.  The backup appeared to have completed.  I have since tried to backup again, but this time it says "SD Card space free: 0MB  There may not be enough free space to complete backup... continuing... Backup up boot image... Error while backing up boot image!"  How can I confirm if the initial backup was successful, and where does it back up to? It seems to imply it was backed up to the "SD Card" - I assume that means the partition of the internal memory chip that is labelled "SD Card" and not the external SD card.  If I do a "wipe data/factory reset", will the backup be preserved, or will it all be wiped?  

I also notice while exploring the CWM menus, that if I look at "install zip from sdcard", and then go to the option "choose zip from sdcard", it allows me to browse the folders on part of the phones internal storage, and I can see folders relating to specific apps that I have installed.  It allows me to access the folders, and also the subfolders, but it doesn't show me the files (I assume this is because it is set to only show ".zip" files).  This indicates to me that at least some (if not all) of my data could be recoverable.  Is there any way to browse the folders and their contents so that I can see all the files, and then copy/move the files to the external SD card?
Phone is now working.  Photos and contacts still intact.  Here's what happened:

I gave up and selected "Wipe data/factory reset" from the Android recovery menu (turn phone on whilst holding down power, vol up and home button at the same time).  

I fully expected this to erase my data (photos and contacts included), but at least get my phone working again.  However, the phone is now factory reset, but all contacts and photos are still there.