Grinding Noise

[dingdenise]

My husband had this brainstorm of making his own letters for his racecar so I have never used a US Cutter MH871-MK2 before. I watched all the step by step tutorials. I am up to the part where I am going to now test and see if the machine prints the words TEST. I am using a pen in the machine to practice. So when I press "cut" the maching only makes squiggly lines and there is an extremely loud grinding noise. It said in in US Cutter Support that it could be the carriage off the track, but I checked it and used the LCD arrows to move the carriage back and forth, and it only moves a little and with the grinding. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Denise