[NAME]  I'd double-check BIOS to make sure BIOS isn't set to RAID. But how did that happen? Did you ever change that BIOS setting yourself? Typically Dell installs Win 10 with RAID set even when there isn't any cache SSD, so it just seems odd if BIOS is set to AHCI... "Intel Mempek1J016GAD" is a firmware update stored directly on the Optane card. So it should disappear from Device Manager all by itself when you physically remove that card. To be even safer, you might want to image all partitions on the HDD on an external USB HDD before removing Optane. Then swap in the new SSD and clone all partitions on the HDD onto it, following the software's instructions to expand the size of only the C: partition if the SSD is larger than the HDD.
win 10 pro-64-bit Hi: I would like to disable the optane memory and install a SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 V-NAND 3-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7S1T0B/AM drive in its place. I have read the optane memory needs to be disabled before removing it, but I can find no way to disable optane memory. It does not appear in IRST app, there is no "tab" with "optane". The optane memory tab is not greyed out, it's just not there. How do I do disable optane memory so that I can install an M.2 NVMe SSD? Thanks
XPS 8930, disable optane memory, not available in IRST