First of all,It is very much important to retain the changes which we do in alfresco.As you do not track of those changes, I recommend you to first configure the amp/jar/all-in-one project to have the those changes in maven project and configure git/svn for it.
For this you can compare folder structure of alfresco with fresh installation of your specific alfresco version.This is very important task and you must do it.No matter how much time it takes.
Regarding your question : As far as i know, on version before 4.2 or 5 , you can not deploy static resource using jar.You need to have the updated version of alfresco to use static resource in jar.
Hope this help.
