PPCGeeks - Touchscreen starts up locked

I've tried searching for this issue but haven't had any luck finding a solution so sorry if this is a repeat.

This is the second time this has happened to me but my phone has the screen locked on it and I'm not able to slide it over to unlock it.

The issue arises I think because I had the phone locked when the battery died. So when it restarts it loads and goes straight into the screen lock. It never gets a chance to load the touchscreen so that you can use the slide.

The previous time I had this issue my phone, my battery eventually died and I left it for several days intending on sending it in because initially I thought it was a hardware issue. When I turned it back on it finally cleared that lock and the touchscreen program was able to load.

Soft resets do not work, taking the battery out for 10 mins doesn't work, and currently I'm unable to backup my contact list which is all I really care about. I cannot load new backups onto the phone and I can't use activesync since I cannot select the activesync tab when I plug it into a pc.

Does anybody have a solution for this problem? Is there any other way to unlock the screen without using the touchscreen? Or are there any programs out there that can backup the contact list without needing to perform a function on the phone? I'm thinking this will require a hard reset, but I'm very hesitant to lose my contact list to do so.

Thanks for your help.