SCCM 2007 deploying Win7 to Optiplex 5040 - unable to partition disk

Dear Dell Community,

We are using SCCM 2007 to deploy Windows 7 x64 and have recently purchased Optiplex 5040 desktops and we are having difficulties with the "Partition Disk 0" task sequence step. We see the following error from the smsts.log file:

"Failed to run the last action: Partition disk, element not found".

Usually, this  is due to incompatible mass storage drivers, and at this point I download the latest WinPE 3.0 drivers, in this case it is the A20 driver pack, and cross reference the drivers within this package with the mass storage drivers in use on a pre-built Optiplex 5040. I have injected the latest Intel Chipset  SATA RAID Controller drivers into the boot.wim file, but the issue persists.

Investigating the pre-built Optiplex 5040, It would seem that the mass storage device in use is actually an NVMe device, not a SATA RAID Controller, but I cannot find any NVMe drivers within the WinPE 3.0 driver pack, so I am at a loss as to how to progress our issue.

Does anyone have any suggestions what we need to do to deploy Windows 7 (x64) to the Optiplex 5040 using SCCM 2007?

Thanks,

Steve