Instead of carrying around the cds to play games on my laptop I would like to make images and mount them... How could I do that under 9x?

I use virtual clone drive to mount CD images but that's not the only one out there.

As for creating CD images there is no lack of solutions either:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/CD-DVD-Images-Utils/ISOpen.shtml

http://www.syix.com/elmer/Cool%20Stuff%204/IsoBuster.htm

http://dpaehl.dd6338.kasserver.com/cdr/cddvdiso.php

Be aware though that not all games CDs will support being run from an image because of certain copy protection schemes.

yeah some games actually blacklist some known CD/DVD-image mounter drivers

There's usually no need to keep images. You can install and apply cracks if needed.

For mounting I use Daemon Tools 3.47.

I use Daemon Tools 3.47 too - very nice program. Images are needed not just for cracking, my game CDs that I have bought in late 90s are barely readable already. Images are good way to backup them.