'WindowsImageBackup' - defragmenting??

Can a vhd file created by Windows 7 (image file) be defragmented, practically speaking? The file Windows has created is over 30GBs and, according to my defrag programmes, is in tens of thousands of fragments. Should I just ignore it? Is a Virtual Hard Disk file in any case a 'real' file which can be defragmented in the usual way? Is it actually defragmented in the same sense as a 'normal' file?

Even if it is theoretically possible, it looks like it would take days for my defragmenter (MyDefrag et al) to deal with it. Very tempted just to leave it (though Googling suggests that its high 'defragmentation' is a reason why I am unable to copy my Windows Image folder to an external USB drive - I get an error message (I posted about that here, but that's a separate issue:) ..

'WindowsImageBackup' folder: can't copy & paste to external USB

Thanks,

Martin

Yes, I agree: I used to copy the image files to an external drive 'just in case', leaving the original on a (different, of course!) internal HDD... but I have now started creating the image files directly on the external USB drive - it will save a lot of hassle, and the chances of my Windows 7 installation and the USB hard drive failing at the same time are pretty remote (I guess!),

Martin

Yes, I used to do that on the hard drive backups - so that I had a current one and the previous one. The issue was copying any of them to a USB drive - it always copied across with no problem - now it won't. I wonder if it is because the image file was for the first time over 30GBs?

No matter, I just create the image file directly onto the USB disc now instead..

M