If that’s true, you should use that to copy your media files.
For more complex backup, like phone book and sms, there are some info to be found around in this forum, e.g. How to restore backup from another device? - #2 by nephros
I don’t know how complete the recovery image is, so maybe you can only copy the db files to an SD-card*, and use sqlite on a computer to access the data.
*) you need an SD-card to actually get data from your phone, when in recovery mode, but this is documented in the how-to linked by @nephros.