Does Ubuntu support SATA drives in AHCI mode?

Question

I have a current installation of Ubuntu 13. Will it boot if I switch my SATA controller to AHCI in BIOS? (I installed Ubuntu in IDE mode) I have to wait until I fix my GRUB (Windows ate it), so I thought I'd take a poll here first in case there are any precautions. I ask, because it was a royal PITA to do it in Windows. Will I need to reinstall Ubuntu to enable this? I don't mind doing that since it was just installed and I having nothing on it yet, and I kinda botched the install anyway.

Solution

You will generally have no problem with Ubuntu when you enable AHCI mode, because it detects this mode automatically. In Windows 7, you have to patch one registry value. And in Windows XP you should install Intel Matrix Storage Manager. I don't consider it is a painful problem though it needs some researching.

Comments

[timelessbeing]

Thanks. So to clarify, I don't need to reinstall Ubuntu? It already has the drivers it needs ... even though I installed in IDE mode?

[Danatela]

@timelessbeing, of course you don't need to do reinstallation. Even if something goes wrong, you can reenable IDE mode again. But the linux kernel, which is responsible for AHCI support, is perfect enough to prevent such situation to happen.

[lepe]

In some cases SATA drives are not detected (old boards) which can be fixed disabling IDE controllers at BIOS