Recovery on virtual machines with existing snapshots

According to one embodiment, in response to a request to revert a virtual machine (VM) to a previously backed up consistent state, whether there are one or more existing consistent states on the VM is determined. In response to determining that there are one or more existing consistent states on the VM, a consolidation or deletion of the one or more existing consistent states is initiated based on a selection to consolidate or to delete the one or more existing consistent states. Whether the consolidation or deletion of the one or more existing consistent states was successful is determined. A recovery operation to revert the VM to the previously backed up consistent state is initiated in response to determining that the consolidation or deletion of the one or more existing consistent states was successful.