Notice:
The testing done on this project was time consuming. However, I would rather corrupt my test servers than the production ones. I have found that if the databases are small enough it is better to dismount the databases and stop IIS. (really do not need to stop IIS but since it runs OWA it will not hurt). Once that is done just copy the files in the MDBDATA folder to another folder. I have tested with NTBackup and I have lost data everytime I did a restore.
With the databases cleanly shutdown and IIS off I could copy and paste all I wanted and I do not lose anything in the databases. My next test will be with Symantec Veritas 10d. I will do an Exchange Data restore and a whole server restore. I save this one for my last.

Overview
Duration of change over: 1 week
Server: Dell 2400 (Server is over 6 years OLD)
Server Name: SES01
Server: Dell 1420SC (Moving to this server under VMWare)
Server Name: EX1
Disk Server Dell 2400 SCSI 36 gigs 3 in Raid 5 Hardware
2 in Volume Raid 5 Mirror to the Volume Drive 68.9 gigs (Software)
Dynmanic Disks are required for Software Raid
(Yes I am really into backups)
Steps:
used NTBackup of C drive and M drive no service Stopped
used NTBackup of C drive and M Drive Exchange Service Stopped
Mirror Raid 5 over to Volume Drive
Tested both to make sure they would boot.
While mirroring drives:
Created Server on Server 2000 in VMWare
installed updates
Cloned Image for Exchange Server
I also shutdown my VMWare Domain Controller and did a copy to make sure it would boot off the network.
Reason for all the Backups
If anything when wrong I could always go back to the time I started.
Reference:
Q307917
DCPROMO
Removed Server SES01 (Server 2000 Small Business) from being a Domain Controller
I also made sure Exchange 2000 worked.
Exchange 2003 install:
Installed Exchange 2003 custom.
After install I followed the steps in Q307917.
Then, I moved 10 mailboxes to the new server.
After one work day:
I shutdown server and copied image for a backup. I then installed SP2 on the Exchange server.
Shutdown SES01 and did not turn on for 3 days.
No issue with users and mailboxes.
shutdown all servers and copied images of all VMs to a safe location.
Rebooted all server including SES01
Images gigs total = 89 Gigs  (with the SATA Drives this took about 30 mins)
Uninstalled Exchange 2000 (I had to remove it from EX1 I could not run the install on SBS 2000)  The uninstall would not work.  SBS must be the only server in for the uninstall to work (guessing)
I did test on the EX1 server after I removed the server from Systems Manager.  I could send and recieive emails from many domains.
Users:
All users mailboxes moved to new server.  I logged in as each user and Exchange did move the users to the new mail server EX1.
I put spam connecitons filters on.