Try two or three 2GIG partitions and finish the rest of the drive in 1GIG partitions. WIN 98 operates differently. All flight sim programs should be on the same drive as the operating system. The only helpful partition to create is a 500MB partition used exclusively for a swap file. You'll have to instruct WIN 98 to use this partition for the swap file.
Most sound cards come equipped with a joystick game port.
Older cards are slow and required a speed adjustable game card or other interface that is fast, stable, and precise enough for your flight controls. You must disable the sound card game port so it won't interfere. Physical jumpers on the sound card are the safest way to completely remove the game port from the circuit. Some sound cards use a software switch to disable the game port but only partially remove it from the circuit, leaving you with erratic flight control response. A good trade off between Image quality, resolution and frame rate, provided you have the hardware to do it, is 72Hz refresh rate at 800X600 resolution.