diff --git a/pkg/cli/etcdsnapshot/etcd_snapshot.go b/pkg/cli/etcdsnapshot/etcd_snapshot.go
index 876b0ea7dec5..0cab8e30c085 100644
--- a/pkg/cli/etcdsnapshot/etcd_snapshot.go
+++ b/pkg/cli/etcdsnapshot/etcd_snapshot.go
@@ -82,10 +82,26 @@ func commandSetup(app *cli.Context, cfg *cmds.Server) (*etcd.SnapshotRequest, *c
 		}
 		cfg.Token = string(bytes.TrimRight(tokenByte, "\n"))
 	}
+
+	if !etcdRunning(dataDir) {
+		return nil, nil, errors.New("K3s is not deployed with an etcd datastore")
+	}
+
 	info, err := clientaccess.ParseAndValidateToken(cmds.ServerConfig.ServerURL, cfg.Token, clientaccess.WithUser("server"))
 	return sr, info, err
 }
 
+// etcdRunning checks if etcd is the datastore
+func etcdRunning(dataDir string) bool {
+	// if kine.sock is present and db/etcd/config is not, we are not using etcd. Only one of them missing could also mean a wrong dataDir
+	_, errEtcd := os.Stat(filepath.Join(dataDir, "db/etcd/config"))
+	_, errKine := os.Stat(filepath.Join(dataDir, "kine.sock"))
+	if os.IsNotExist(errEtcd) && !os.IsNotExist(errKine) {
+		return false
+	}
+	return true
+}
+
 func wrapServerError(err error) error {
 	if errors.Is(err, context.DeadlineExceeded) {
 		// if the request timed out the server log likely won't contain anything useful,
diff --git a/tests/e2e/snapshotrestore/snapshotrestore_test.go b/tests/e2e/snapshotrestore/snapshotrestore_test.go
index dc47907f78c7..eb5b1c6848a1 100644
--- a/tests/e2e/snapshotrestore/snapshotrestore_test.go
+++ b/tests/e2e/snapshotrestore/snapshotrestore_test.go
@@ -145,17 +145,6 @@ var _ = Describe("Verify snapshots and cluster restores work", Ordered, func() {
 			Expect(e2e.RunCmdOnNode(cmd, serverNodeNames[0])).Error().NotTo(HaveOccurred())
 		})
 
-		It("Resets non bootstrap nodes", func() {
-			for _, nodeName := range serverNodeNames {
-				if nodeName != serverNodeNames[0] {
-					cmd := "k3s server --cluster-reset"
-					response, err := e2e.RunCmdOnNode(cmd, nodeName)
-					Expect(err).NotTo(HaveOccurred())
-					Expect(response).Should(ContainSubstring("Managed etcd cluster membership has been reset, restart without --cluster-reset flag now"))
-				}
-			}
-		})
-
 		It("Checks that other servers are not ready", func() {
 			fmt.Printf("\nFetching node status\n")
 			Eventually(func(g Gomega) {