Restore only part of nandroid image

In attempt to install 2.2 I've deleted all my contacts(contacts were saved on phone, not as google contacts) I've done full [nandroid](http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=459830) backup while phone still had those contacts; however when I try restoring image; I get bootloop. Nandroid backup contains system.img, data.img, cache.img and boot.img; I'm wondering if I can restore only data.img to get contacts back. I have thought of 2 other solutions: a) make a new nandroid image of current status; verify that it's ok by doing restart; then open copy database with contacts from one backup to another. b) open database with contacts from data.img; and manually retype 200 phone records. Is there any smarter (quicker, easier) way??