Correct BIOS settings for Optane installation

[NickM35]

I'm reposting because the answers I got so far were not helpful and I don't want this to be buried under newer posts.

My problem is quite serious and it goes like this. When I try to install an Optane Module to accelerate my secondary HDD (Seagate Barracuda 2TB with 256MB cache) that I use as a Steam library I get a blue screen with the error report "Inaccesible boot drive"

 

Let's take this from the beginning. My boot drive is a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe SSD installed in port 3 (the one with the heatsink) of my MOBO which is a Z390 MEG ACE with the latest bios (ver.1.70) and when I go to install the Optane module in port 1 (above the GPU) I go through these steps.

 

1. Turn off PC, turn off PSU, unplug PC

2. Go into BIOS and revert it to default. This was suggested by the MSI support but it didn't work. I got the same blue screen again. This might be one of the causes of the problem.

3. Follow the MSI support instructions and change the following settings. Note that the manual suggests to just enable Optane Genie which I tried the first time but got the same blue screen

1. W10 WHQL Support set to UEFI
2. MSI fast boot set to Disable
3. Fast Boot set to Enabled
4. SATA Mode set to RAID/Optane. Note that the Intel support when I contacted them suggested that I leave this to AHCI. This might be the other cause of the problem but I haven't tried this yet because I'm scared I might break my boot drive or something
5. M.2 Optane Genie set to Enable
6. M.2_1 RST PCIe Storage Remapping set to Enable
7. M.2_2 RST PCIe Storage Remapping set to Enable

I'm thinking the last two might be the third cause. That's because after I enable Optane Genie the M.2_2 gets switched to Disable.

 

I hope someone can give me an definitive answer.

Thanks gamers!