Thanks for the reply gedakc.
I DID find this thread:
http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=13274
. . . and attempted to use "Run Forcevideo" mode and the VESA video driver, and tried selecting something at least a little higher res, but GParted simply hangs after the selections.
I am not sure if it is the fact that the computer has the "Optimus" technology or not that is causing the problem there.
I did try the "nv' driver and various other setting combinations (colour bit levels too) and nothing seemed to work.
I believe it is defaulting to the onboard intel graphics though I can't be sure.
It is a newer laptop with the Skylake chipset which is causing a little bit of an issue for some of the latest iterations of Linux distributions but the community seems to be working through them. I am not sure if that is translating to Gparted as well or not.
I can still use Gparted (Thankfully), it's just getting a bit small to work comfortably with.
If you have any other suggestions in the mean time, I am all ears.
I just thought you might like to know what I've tired and what was the result.
Cheers.