how to retrieve volume from a removed Docker container?

Question

If I have a data volume container, and I stop & remove the container (without the -v flag which would remove the volume), is it still possible to start a new data volume container with the orphaned volume? Or is the data lost?

Answer 1

If you remove a container with docker rm but without the -v flag, your data will still be available inside the /var/lib/docker/vfs/dir/<your-volume-id>/ directory on the host.

To use the orphaned volume in a new docker container, you can either mount that directory from the host or attach a new empty volume to your docker container & then sync the data.