Images and containers have disappeared, how do I get them back?

Docker Desktop
1

I am not sure what caused it, although over the weekend, Windows 11 23H2 update was installed (this is a corp. laptop). On Monday, when I launched Docker Desktop, all containers and images that were no longer displayed in the desktop.
I checked and it is not because of switching to Windows containers. I do not use Windows containers anyway.
I found that Docker with WSL2 back end stores data in ~/AppData/local/Docker/wsl. I think that my stuff is still there, but somehow docker has decided to now use a different file:

These are the contents of that wsl folder:

./main:
total 145M
145M May 20 12:13 ext4.vhdx

./disk:
total 4.4G
4.4G May 20 12:13 docker_data.vhdx

./data:
total 218G
218G May 18 20:02 ext4.vhdx

I am not sure which disk images are used, but I suspect that disk/docker_data.vhdx contains stuff related to the image I created on Monday (the size is in the ballpark) while data/ext4.vhdx (hopefully) contains the stuff which has disappeared over the weekend (going by its size and date).

The question is, how do I get that stuff back? I can recreate the images, but I’d like to access a few of those containers which have work in progress inside of them (they were of a temporary nature, but the work was not done).

I do not have admin access on this laptop.

Docker version, context, info:

Client:
 Version:           27.0.3
 API version:       1.46
 Go version:        go1.21.11
 Git commit:        7d4bcd8
 Built:             Sat Jun 29 00:03:32 2024
 OS/Arch:           windows/amd64
 Context:           desktop-linux

Server: Docker Desktop 4.32.0 (157355)
 Engine:
  Version:          27.0.3
  API version:      1.46 (minimum version 1.24)
  Go version:       go1.21.11
  Git commit:       662f78c
  Built:            Sat Jun 29 00:02:50 2024
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          1.7.18
  GitCommit:        ae71819c4f5e67bb4d5ae76a6b735f29cc25774e
 runc:
  Version:          1.7.18
  GitCommit:        v1.1.13-0-g58aa920
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0

NAME              DESCRIPTION                               DOCKER ENDPOINT                             ERROR
default           Current DOCKER_HOST based configuration   npipe:////./pipe/docker_engine              
desktop-linux *   Docker Desktop                            npipe:////./pipe/dockerDesktopLinuxEngine   

Client:
 Version:    27.0.3
 Context:    desktop-linux
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:
  buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.15.1-desktop.1
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-buildx.exe
  compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v2.28.1-desktop.1
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-compose.exe
  debug: Get a shell into any image or container (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  0.0.32
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-debug.exe
  desktop: Docker Desktop commands (Alpha) (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.0.14
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-desktop.exe
  dev: Docker Dev Environments (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.1.2
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-dev.exe
  extension: Manages Docker extensions (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.2.25
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-extension.exe
  feedback: Provide feedback, right in your terminal! (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v1.0.5
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-feedback.exe
  init: Creates Docker-related starter files for your project (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v1.3.0
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-init.exe
  sbom: View the packaged-based Software Bill Of Materials (SBOM) for an image (Anchore Inc.)
    Version:  0.6.0
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-sbom.exe
  scout: Docker Scout (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v1.10.0
    Path:     C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins\docker-scout.exe

Server:
 Containers: 0
  Running: 0
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 0
 Images: 1
 Server Version: 27.0.3
 Storage Driver: overlay2
  Backing Filesystem: extfs
  Supports d_type: true
  Using metacopy: false
  Native Overlay Diff: true
  userxattr: false
 Logging Driver: json-file
 Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
 Cgroup Version: 1
 Plugins:
  Volume: local
  Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
  Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local splunk syslog
 Swarm: inactive
 Runtimes: io.containerd.runc.v2 runc
 Default Runtime: runc
 Init Binary: docker-init
 containerd version: ae71819c4f5e67bb4d5ae76a6b735f29cc25774e
 runc version: v1.1.13-0-g58aa920
 init version: de40ad0
 Security Options:
  seccomp
   Profile: unconfined
 Kernel Version: 5.15.146.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
 Operating System: Docker Desktop
 OSType: linux
 Architecture: x86_64
 CPUs: 20
 Total Memory: 31.14GiB
 Name: docker-desktop
 ID: c1c707ba-73b5-4996-9093-797b63193985
 Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
 Debug Mode: false
 HTTP Proxy: http.docker.internal:3128
 HTTPS Proxy: http.docker.internal:3128
 No Proxy: hubproxy.docker.internal
 Labels:
  com.docker.desktop.address=npipe://\\.\pipe\docker_cli
 Experimental: false
 Insecure Registries:
  hubproxy.docker.internal:5555
  127.0.0.0/8
 Live Restore Enabled: false
2

Since you are using Docker Desktop on Windows, the only way I can imagine containers disappearing, if you changed the image store. If you or Docker Desktop automatically switched to containerd or back from it, you need ro pull the images again and since containers need images, you will lose the containers as well. Try to change that settings (I think in the general tab).

4

Hi Sally,

Thanks for that. I suspected that was the cause.

FWIW, we don’t have local admin rights so I am not able to access it via WSL. However, I found that 7-zip is able to open and extract files from VHDX images with ext4 filesystem, so I was able to rescue the most important files like that.

With kind regards,

Chris