You should not need to reconfigure and recompile your kernel just to have ide-scsi emulation. That comes as a part of the default kernel. What you should do, however, is add
hdx=ide-scsi to the append section of your lilo.conf file (or the relevant part of your grub.conf file), where hdx is the device name for your ide cd burner, and reboot. When your system comes back up, your cd burner will be seen as a scsi device, and then you can continue as normal (cdrecord -scanbus, note down your scsi device numbers, then use your cd burning software).
You can install a bootloader at any time. If you're unhappy with using the Linux bootloaderin your MBR and having Windows as an option for it, you can use something called
loadlin - it's a DOS program that allows you to boot Linux nicely.
As for the kernel specific make symlinks stuff... try what I suggest above first