Well I may yet get this computer to work. I got my new RTC battery today and it looks like you might be right about it causing the issue Krille. After I replaced it I no longer get the CMOS low error at all, BIOS shows the Seagate needs formatting since it's over 528MB, and the Caviar which is under that allows me to do SCANDISK it found no bad clusters nor any other issues with the drive. Typing FDISK shows 1 fixed disk drive now instead of the "No fixed disks present" error I kept getting before.
Now if I start the computer without the boot disk installed it comes to a page after memory check has completed where it says "Hold the CTRL key down to boot from a floppy. . . "Additionally, when it tries booting from the Windows 95 boot disk, it states
"Starting Windows 95 . . .
The compression driver cannot be set up correctly. Get a version from your vendor that is compatible with this version of Windows. Press any key to continue . . . "
Afterwards I did the dir command and it found 28 files taking up a total of 1,692,252 bytes with 32,624,640 bytes free. I can't figure out how to scroll up to see the rest of the files, but I figure I'd need a serial port mouse to do that. Page up and the directional up arrow didn't work for that. The files I can see were installed from 1993-1997. Some programs are : MP95 (10-03-96), MS Office (3-08-95), Windows (12-02-93), WINWORD (3-01-94), and WINWORKS (12-02-93).
So what should the next step be? Why can I still not boot off the drive or start the Windows 95 installation process on it? Would it be easier even though it'd be my first time doing it to just format the >528MB Seagate drive and install Windows 95 on it or what could I do with the Caviar drive?
Lastly, if I type in sys C: at the A: command prompt, it tells me "You are overwriting system files from a different version of MS-DOS or Windows. The system files you are installing will only work with the version of Windows for which they are intended.
Are you sure you want to proceed (Y/N)?"
I am holding off on that until I figure out what the best course of action would be. I wouldn't want to erase a usable copy of an OS by formatting if it wasn't necessary to do so. Got my USB floppy drive a few days ago as well and it works without issue so that could be useful in the future.
Looking forward to hearing back from you guys.