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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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If you have access to an external drive as big or bigger than the laptop drive, boot SystemRescueCD and ddrescue it as a backup, just to be safe. I personally haven't had it actually wipe a drive, basically it's saying switching might render it unbootable if the right drivers aren't in place.
I always back up first just to be safe though, worst case I waste a little time.
I only got an old external USB2 drive. Backing up >1TB over that will take some time^^
Thanks for the suggestion though!
My acer laptop did the exact same thing for unknown reasons. When I switched it back to AHCI Arch (btw) booted again but windows broke and I managed to fix it with a Windows live usb. I think I had to use bcdboot and generate a new bootloader.
The last time I remember hearing of AHCI was when SATA was still new and IDE (or ATA) was king.