Windows NT sp4 Connection to the Internet

I have a labtop at home with built in ethernet card and i recently hooked up a Diamond 56K modem the modem works fine and i can dail an outside line fine. the problem is that while installing IE5.5 (this seemed to be ok) when i went to open IE5.5 it crashed and gave a silly message, when i checked the control panel the Internet Options is missing and when i click on another source of internet setting is brings up the silly message again, it reads something like

cannot open connection settings please add dialup and tcp/ip settings manually.

I have done a checkdisk and it did find errors in inetcpl.dll and it fixed it but it didn`t work, i don`t want to format the drive as i don`t have the drivers for the cd rom, sound card or the ethernetcard also i don`t have a copy of windows nt

Has any one got any suggestions on how to continue?? that would sort out my Windows NT, everything else is ok, but the internet options which dont seem to be there??

Thanks any help will be handy

silly question about the silly message, have you checked your dialup and tcp/ip settings? and are you able to connect ok before opening IE?

Thanks PJB but i finaly figured it out??, the problem was that i installed a modem on comm 1 and for some reason some setting where still on connecting though a LAN, i reconfigured the TCP/IP settings clicked on bindings (as if u don`t win NT does seem to do anything, and it doesn`t work) it then came up with a message ur settings are using a lan do u wish to modify them to use a dail up adapter , great this is what i wanted 2 days ago. I let it change it and it all just poped on i connected to freeserve and i was on.

Thanks for the Help, just needed to think what i was doing and u know what pc are like u try the same thing over and over and it never works then all of a sudden it will, cheeer guys