Can physical copies be played on a PC disc drive?

It would have to be a disc made for the PC. If it's an Xbox disc, it will only work on an Xbox console.

If you own the disc copy of a game, you'll have to have the disc in the console and it will have to be installed.

Details can be found here. The store would represent the digital copy of the game, which is different than the physical copy. You'll need the physical copy of the game in the drive when you want to play that game.

You can connect an external hard drive to the system and play games from it but they must be full digital games and not physical copies as you still need the disc the play them

Unfortunately, no. Not with physical discs. Only digital copies can be played without the disc.

that's how it works with physical copies everywhere. sorry to hear that the disc drive is broken.