“bootmgr is missing” installing Windows HPC 2008 R2 Compute Nodes

Creating a node template from a Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC edition disc, and then PXE booting the cluster nodes seems to leave the cluster node unbootable.

It seems that the default diskpart.txt creates a single partition that the Server 2008 WIM doesn’t initialize correctly.

If instead, you use one of the now unbootable cluster nodes and perform a GUI install into that single partition, you can create a WIM from that node to use with a new compute node template.

Trying to use the GUI install from an unpartitioned disk won’t work, because it overrides your partition choice and creates extra boot / system partitions. If you instead choose to install into the single partition that the diskpart stage created during the failed node install, you’ll get a Windows install that you can use to create your “Golden Image” from, following the instructions on technet: How to Capture a “Master” Compute Node Image Using Node Templates