Recycle bin attached to External drive?

Whenever I go to empty my recycle bin, my external seagate spins up. I looked at the properties and the drive is there listed as primary. I change it to "C" and it eventually defaults back to the external. why is this happening and how can I fix it permanently

Whenever I go to empty my recycle bin, my external seagate spins up.

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Normal behavior.

There is a $Recycle.Bin folder on each drive attached to the computer which contains files deleted on that drive. When you empty the recycle bin the OS must check the $Recycle.Bin folder on each drive to see if it contains any entries that need to be deleted.

Unless I have misunderstood your question.