Your'e welcome! See answers below in red
1. what program (and on what computer) do I need to burn the images
OK, I'll try my best to give you proper step by step instructions. I recommend using an OS 9.2.2 machine. Either download the images to your main daily driver & use the sneakernet to get them over on USB! OS 9 had a habit of getting grumpy if you try to restore/burn and some other functions from/to USB drives. Not so bad with firewire, so once you've got the .bin files all in one folder, use stuffit expander to extract them. Grab that from here: http://macintoshgarden.org/sites/macintoshgarden.org/files/apps/STFDLX703CLASSIC.SIT2. none of these images are over 700mb.. can I use a CD Rom or must I use DVD Disks for everything? I've misplaced my blank DVDs' so I need ot find them today or buy some more (I do have some DVD-R+ disks, does anyone know if Super drives are DVD+ or -?)
You don't need CDs or DVDs, the bin files, once extracted is a single disk image file which is separated into 4 files. I'll explain what to do with them next3. I need to be sure that the DAW image (as a disk) or some other image must be bootable. I know i have Tiger on the 2nd HDD (not partition), but honestly my hope is to have the first smaller drive by the OS9 drive and the 2nd one be for Digital Audio Recording..
If you have an OS 9 retail disk, I suggest booting from that, then use disk utility to completely wipe every drive in your machine, then install that OS 9 to the DATA drive you plan to use for audio. Once installed, boot into that drive, then install stuffit in there, get your DieHard files onto the same partition where you just installed OS 9, then use Apple Software restore (must be in the same folder as the .IMG files) to push the image to the actual drive you ultimately want to boot from. Once this is done, boot into that partition & enjoy a big fat smile as you see that DAW come to life!NOTE: nether drive is over the 128gb ceiling so no need to partition them.. IIRC
4. get the image installed. The installation of the DAW image.. is it a strict copy / paste approach or is there a more traditional "installation" process as you'd experience say, installing normal Windows or OSX?
See aboveI'm not a perfectionist and I'm happy to experiment.. I just think perhaps I'm making assumptions on how things should work vs how they actually work. I could have sworn I booted from the DVD OS9Lives 9.2.2 I have.. but its not booting to install.. so clearly I must have to do it another way and that other way has escaped me.
Thanks!

Caleb
[/quote]
Sorry to be a pest but just in case I missed it, do you know the serial number for your machine? If so, just to be sure, put it into the lookup section on everymac to be 100% sure what machine you have, then post the link in here so I can take a look.
I don't even mind doing a full tutorial on video as I know it might help others, and I mean literally all the nuts and bolts!
If you would like me to do that let me know, as soon as I have time I'll get it done, probably on Friday, then chop the video together on Saturday, edit & comp it & upload by Sunday...