I'm trying to repair a broken windows installation...I want to use test disk but I'm having problems

1) I can't remember, or find the root command for the console
2) When i did get to the root console somehow, and typed in SUDO TESTDISK it said it needed 25 lines to work....

I guess I'm looking for answer to question 1 for the time being


EDIT: I'm back at the root console now...

Now I'm just having the same trouble with testdisk telling me it needs 25 lines to work...and I've tried to type screen=1280x1024 in the root console but it doesn't respond