It made an almighty squeal then a crunch. Now it just wont read anything.
It also mangled Turrican 2 in the process. 
...so it's something serious...
It
maybe fixed, but you need to open drive, check out the mechanics and spend some time...
A spare drive it's not a bad idea in this case.
However I am still curious about the drive emulators.
Yes, but you won't read real 3,5" disks.
Having at least a real external drive (or drive emulator as an external drive) is advisable to load real stuff.
BY and good luck!