it has now consolidated the vmdk on DISK_1 ...
Are you sure? That's not what I expected from the log files and the time stamps!? I expected "Windows Server 2008 Std R2-000001.vmdk" to be merged into "Windows Server 2008 Std R2.vmdk" and "Windows Server 2008 Std R2_1-000001.vmdk" to stay as it is as it should be an obsolete file. Do you still see no changes in the datastore browser after clicking the Refresh button?
What you should basically do to avoid such issues in the future is to check the .vmdk file name of the virtual disk (either in the VM's disk settings or in the .vmx file) and if it's name contains "...-00000x.vmdk" it has an active snapshot which you should delete prior to disconnecting the virtual disk. Another option would be to set the data disk to "Independent-Persistent", this excludes the virtual disk from snapshots.
André