Recovering an HPE MSA 2040 with no admin credentials

Problem

Acquired an HPE MSA 2040 (24-bay SFF, dual controllers) second-hand with no known admin login and no way into the management interface.

Cause

Previous owner's credentials were unknown, and the array had no reset option exposed over the network interface.

Fix

Recover through the controller's serial CLI:

• Connect to the controller's serial/console port.
• At the CLI, run the restoredefaults procedure to reset management access back to factory defaults.
• Log in with the default credentials, then set a new admin password.

After regaining access, verify drive and volume state before trusting the array:

• Check all drives report healthy.
• Confirm whether any volumes were left behind by the previous owner (in this case there were none — all 24 drives healthy, no leftover volumes).

Note the dual controllers each have their own serial port; do the reset on the controller you're managing through.