Okay this is what Carl knows about making bootable CD-R. Its not much so
this is going to be short and sweet ( I hope). 

First you have to make the directory into a .iso file this is easy just 

mkisofs -r -o <target file>.iso <source directory>

Then to get your device address you type

cdrecord -scanbus

On my system it 0,0,0 

Then just burn it 

cdrecord -v -data speed=12 dev=0,0,0 <source file>.iso

The speed of course can be set for anything withing the maximum range of
your burner. (But 12 is fast enough for me and it always works). And sub
0,0,0 for your dev that you got from the scanbus. 

That pretty much all I know except to go to 

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/CD-Writing-HOWTO.html 

when any of the above doesn't work. Sorry if your on a Window box as I
don't have a clue how to do it in M$

Carl P.