yeah, that works. just small problems like maybe fixing the boot loader/efi or fstab because disks are enumerated differently or propietary drivers missing. you can also likely just export package manager selections, /etc, /var and your home dir as tarballs to change a fresh install of the same distro into yours.
i also did the reverse: on a dual boot gentoo+debian with 2 HDs, i installed vmware in gentoo and configured the HD of the debian install as HD in the VM and it ran very well. the linux kernel autodetects all drivers at boot anyway. same for X or Wayland nowadays. (long ago, it was different and you would have needed to swap 2 X configs, for example, but nowadays it’s all very flexible and dynamic)