Can I boot my recovered SSD as a Mac OS X installation I recovered an SSD from an old, upgraded 2008 Macbook Pro with a broken keyboard in order to recover the data from it.

Initially I was planning to put it in my other Mac Pro and simply copy the data as if it was another drive, but then another idea came to my mind. What if I could boot that SSD from my Mac Pro? 

I don't know if it's possible to set the SSD as a boot drive and start a MBP installation on another machine. 

Otherwise I though it could be possible to save the drive as an ISO image and boot is using a virtualization software on my other Mac. Is this even possible? (AFAIK virtualization from another Mac is permitted and legal).
It depends on the system installed on the SSD. If the Mac Pro is capable of booting with it and it fits physically, then I see no problem why it shouldn't work.


MacPro1,1 - 2,1: max system version: 10.7.5
MacPro3,1 - 6,1: max system version: latest
all MacBookPros 2008 (4,1 and 5,1) can run the latest system


Usually all necessary drivers for any Mac (which can run the system) are included in a standard system install.

There is only one exception: systems for new Macs with absolutely new hardware usually contain new drivers though the minor system version number is equal to the general current one. The build number is different though. The newly released Mac can't start from the general system release valid for all other Macs.