Greetings and few newbie questions

[Boo]

even though you answered you own first question, mintdisk should have mounted the ntfs partitions automatically. sometimes checking mintdesktop settings in config center and mintdisk settings makes them show up on your desktop.
But mint disk is using ntfs-3g which runs in user space so this may not meet your needs.

if you want to open the file manager, nautilus, as root open a terminal and:

gksudo nautilus

But be careful as it is easy to wreck your system.

the great vi:
install vim useing synaptic. that should solve your problems and give you colours for syntax and cool gui stuff.
yes the vi mapping is poo.