error while mounting volume: failed to mount local volume: mount: no such file or directory

TL;DR: The device or host path backing the volume does not exist. Verify it with lsblk / ls, fix the device name or create the path, then retry. This hits people using the local driver's device option for disk-backed volumes, where a renamed disk (sdb became sdc) breaks every mount.

The error

error while mounting volume '/var/lib/docker/volumes/myvol/_data': failed to mount local volume: mount /dev/sdb1:/var/lib/docker/volumes/myvol/_data URIs no such file or directory

Fix it

1. Check the device exists:

lsblk | grep sdb1 Expected: either present (path problem) or absent (device renamed/missing).

1. If the disk moved (common after reboot with multiple USB/SATA disks), find its new name and update the volume options, or better, switch the volume to UUID-based device paths.
2. If it is a plain path, create it:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/voldata

1. Retry the container start.

When this applies

• docker volume create --opt device=/dev/... volumes
• Daemon/volume plugin startup failures referencing missing paths

When this does NOT apply

• Simple bind mounts (the 'bind source path does not exist' skill)
• Permission errors on existing paths

Versions

All Docker versions; local volume driver options are stable.

Why it happens

The local volume driver performs a real mount syscall with your options. Unlike -v binds, there is no auto-creation; a wrong device node or missing directory fails the mount and the container never starts.

Edge cases

• Use /dev/disk/by-uuid/... instead of /dev/sdX in volume options; sd letters are not stable across reboots.
• NFS-backed volumes (--opt type=nfs) fail this way when the server is unreachable; check showmount -e [server].
• After fixing, docker volume inspect myvol shows the stored options; recreate the volume if the options themselves are wrong (options are immutable).