I've set mine to not auto-boot if a game is in the drive so it goes to the dashboard. It will spin an extra 10 seconds or so and hang on the xbox boot up screen before going to dashboard and often I have to press eject then shut to boot the game.

Been like this for months even before red light repair not got any worse just slightly annoying if anything, worth it though for the best games console out and if it does stop reading altogether I'll just ring them up.