Which tar file are you speaking of?
For rooting, no external sd car is needed. To clean everything up, restore everything with external sd, then remove sd and root the device:
0.) Unzip minimal-root.zip (be sure to get latest version from Nov 28, older ones contain bugs) and apply changes according to
wiki if you want.
1.) Connect via usb to computer
2.) Run flash_reader.bat
3.) T1 should reboot automatically and everything should be fine.
Regarding resizing - I simply copied the info from translated Russian thread in hope that somebody will try it and post updated info
I haven't found time to resize my T1 sys partition yet.