Glad it worked out!
Your experiences match pretty much my own. The file system does matter, better do it with a Linux box (I used gparted, which worked for me). After a while the loading bar isn't full any more (my guess is, that this shows an unsuccessful reboot, which gets stuck), but I'm not sure here.
I guess, I will update the wiki a little bit. Are there places, which you found confusing?
Why not try rooting again? Now that you know how to rescue, the risk of messing up is even smaller...
