Joystick Troubles

[Anubis2k4]

I've just bought and installed Starshatter, i loaded it up and launched into a training mission. At first my joystick worked fine, but after a minute or two it stopped working, loose connection i thought, so i checked the connection, there was no problem. Keyboard controls worked fine, but my Joystick was just dead.
A couple of minutes later after no warning my joystick suddenly started working again, but now whenever i use it to turn left or right it takes me to the right and whether i use it to turn up or down it takes me down. Its incredibly hard to play like this and id prefer to use my joystick over my keyboard.
I've restarted the game to see if it was just a one time glitch but the same thing happens every time, i've also ran Freespace and other joystick games and my joystick works fine in those. Can anyone shed some light on what the problem is and how i can fix it?

[Burzmali]

Typing "J" changes the joystick from Space mode to Atmosphere mode, that might be the problem. What type of stick do you have?

[Anubis2k4]

Its a very old stick, a PC Raider. Its analog, i'm not sure if that could be a problem.