How do I restore from old hard drive to a new iMac ?

The logic board in my mid 2008 iMac 24" has failed just 3 months out of AppleCare. To replace this will cost me HK$ 6500. I was going to buy a new mac anyway, just waiting for the next refresh model to come out. So a new 27" i7 with highest spec and SSD and 2TB hard drive with AppleCare will cost me HK$ 24k. No brainer to just buy a new iMac rather than spend 25% of the cost to repair a 3+ year old iMac.
The hard drive is working ok so the repair centre said they will remove the hard drive for me and suggested I buy an enclosure for it , put the old drive in the enclosure and then transfer the program's, settings and files to the new IMac.
What is the best way to do this ? I obviously cannot boot up the old drive. Can I connect this drive to the new iMac and then use setup assistant to move settings and program's to the SSD on the new iMac , then use migration assistant to move the remainder of the files ( documents folder, iPhoto etc) to the hard drive on the new iMac ?
If not then any suggestions ?

Do as the repair center suggests and place the old drive in an enclosure then connect it to the new Mac.
When you first start new Mac run Setup Assistant and tell it to restore from the external drive.
It worked for me and should work for you.
Allan

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