[Discuss] Disabling UEFI and dual booting Linux and Windows

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Rich Pieri)]

On Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:24:05 -0500
Matthew Gillen <me at mattgillen.net> wrote:

> I had a laptop that I installed linux on.  Then one day I was messing 
> with bios settings, and noticed that my SATA controller was set to
> IDE mode, instead of the much faster AHCI.  So I switched it, and
> linux wouldn't boot (couldn't find the disk).

I've run into this and I think I mentioned something about it
previously in this thread. When you change the SATA controller mode you
change how disk devices are enumerated. This confuses GRUB to no end.
It also confuses the NT boot loader. Then there are the ATA (legacy)
vs. AHCI vs. RAID driver issues. The last is a major headache on Sandy
Bridge and Ivy Bridge computers using Intel RST, and it's going to be
an absolute nightmare on Macintosh computers configured to use Fusion
Drive.

I agree. It's almost certainly something unintentional, something
overlooked. I can't test it myself because I don't have a pre-installed
environment to examine.


> I doubt the equivalent of "rebuilding initrd to include the other 
> driver" is easy in windows...

Unfortunately not. If the problem is as you describe then a complete
reinstall of Windows/NT (any version) is in order. My understanding is
that it has to do with getting the correct HAL installed and connected
to the boot chain. Easier and more reliable to reinstall Windows.

-- 
Rich P.