can i use my old hard drive (osx ML installed) to import everything on my new mac?

I do have a 250 gb hdd installed mountain lion. I was wondering if i can use it for restoring on the new mac. Like if it was a time machine backup.

I am asking this becuase I have hard drive issue, and i dont have space to make a full backup of the old hdd but i can place it into a external hdd enclosure and i thought i give the restore a try. WIll it work?