First something about CDRWs.
If the CDROM reader in your Macintosh is an original one from Apple, it will very likely NOT be able to boot from an erasable rewritable CD. These are also called "CDRW". You really must burn your Mac OS 9 CD to a regular one-time-only-writable CD.
If you have replaced that old Apple CDROM with something more modern then this shouldn't be a problem.
Also, you can't burn Mac OS to a DVD, it must be a CD.
Here's how to do it on a Windows computer:
Just copy your Mac OS CD 1:1, or CD->CD as it is also called. The Windows machine won't "understand" what it is copying, but it will make a true image of your CD.
If you think you will need further copies then let your burning program leave an image of the Mac OS CD on its hard disk. Thus you will have a "mold" from which you can burn as many CDs as you like.
The same philosophy applies to a Linux system.
Here's how to do it on Mac OS 9:
1. Add another hard disk to your system. Create an empty hard disk partition on it. The hard disk partition needs to be ~700MB or more.
If you already have partitioned your drive into several partitions and have one to spare, no extra harddrive is needed. Just see to it that this partition gets emptied of all data before you begin.
2. Copy over all files from a known good Mac OS 9 CD to the root of your empty partition. "Root" meaning that you mustn't put the stuff into a folder.
3. Check that your copied system folder is smiling (is blessed), just like it is on the original CD. It should be if you want your CD to be able to boot.
4. Start Toast and drag all the the recently copied files to Toast's content area. Toast should be set to "DATA" and compatibility to "MAC ONLY".
Remember that the arrangement of icons and open windows on your partition will be inherited by the CD. Make a nice icon arrangement and open a window where the INSTALL icon is easily klickable before you start Toast.
You can even add some extras to this boot CD. I always keep an XTRAS folder filled with Mac OS updates, system utilities, tools, etc. There's plenty of room for that on a 700MB CD. If you need even more space you can remove a music video among the original files that is ~40MB and in quicktime format. This is just a filler and has nothing to do with Mac OS. Probably some friends of Steve Jobs getting promoted...
5. Burn. I have noticed that refraining from other activities on the same machine and slow burn speeds give the best results.
6. Test your CD by installing a Mac OS system from it. You can install one active Mac OS per partition.
Good luck!
