Hard Drive Working While PC Is Idle

"I am not really sure if this is normal or not."
-Yes, it is...
It's pretty common for a hard drive to start reading when you computer seems to be just sitting. Some times it's hard to tell why it's being read other times it just takes a little digging (like a background virus scan) that may run without realizing it's happening.

I wouldn't worry about it...
If you absolutely must know you can open task manager and shut off some tasks to see which one stops the drive from being read. But you may not find it cause even windows will read the hard drive for what seems like no reason. In reality it could be indexing new files, caching files or making a change/adjustment to the Virtual Memory.

As above, Yes due to background programs such as Virus scans, defrag, and indexing.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

W7 housekeeping.