Cloning (Time Machine) a hardrive from an older Macbook to a new One

I'm looking to purchase a new Macbook Pro. My current one is about 3 years old.
I'm set up with Logic, lot's of other plugins and software as well as a offloaded sample library on an external drive.
Do not want to reinstall software and figure out all the little details that went into filing things, drivers, etc.....and mostly because I've forgotten most of it over the years. Right now my Macbook works the way I want it too....
Question: Can I use Time Machine to basically clone my current drive and bring this "clone" onto the new Macbook drive, plug in my sample libary external drive (that's aliased in all the right places...) and be off and running like nothing ever changed....or is there more to it than this?
Before I drop the $$$, I need to assess how hard this is going to be.
thanks in advance....

If that's the case then I assume there's no need (or point) to clone anything and if I did it sounds like I couldn't boot up anyways. This is not a good thing....correct? You're saying I just need to hook up the two computers, "migrate" thru setup and I'm done, but that sounds too easy. Don't know anything about this migration process, but the concern is the same....does it put everything in the exact same location and/or order as the old drive (ie: this is what I understand cloning does which is what allows it maintains all the pointers to data, etc....). For some reason I'm not convinced that I'll be able to just pick up and run like I did in SL once this is done.
Here's a stupid question. Is there anything that would prevent me from wiping out Lion, installing Snow Leapord on the new machine, Clone my old machine onto the new hardrive and then update the OS back to Lion?
Sounds like a roundabout way of acheiving the same thing, but at least the location and pointers would be maintained....or should be anyways.
Am I making this more complicated than it needs to be??
thank you for your input....much appreciated. Just want to make sure I got this straight before wiping everything out and pulling the trigger

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I have a MacBook pro that has power issues and will not start but the hardrive is fine. I do not want to lose all of my files so I was wondering if it's possible to transfer my hardrive from a older Macbook pro to a new one if I were to purchase a new one? Also, the software is not updated as the computer hasn't worked for about 2 months.
Also, if it is possible to transfer the hardrive, would my iTunes music transfer as well? It is not saved in the cloud.
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You computer is probably perfectly repairable, but if you want a new one anyway, it is perfectly possible to transfer the data from the faulty one.
But it would be a mistake to simply put the old HD in the new computer.
These are the steps:
Remove Hard drive from faulty computer. (very easy on Unibody MBPs, do-able but not so easy on older MBPs)
Put it in a cheap enclosure
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If the new computer has never been run before the Setup Assistant will ask if you want to import your apps, data, settings etc from either another mac, another HD connected to the Mac or a Time Machine back up.
Obviously chose the second option (another HD connected to this Mac) and follow prompts.
If the new computer has already been run (so Setup Assistant doesn't run when you boot it up), you will need to use Migration Assistant...or run the installer again so that Setup Assistant runs again.
Message was edited by: Mike Boreham...added sec on line

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Cloning (Time Machine) a hardrive from an older Macbook to a new One

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