rsync fail problem

I'm running an rsync process to backup my hard drive to my firewire drive.    When this runs, most files work fine, however there are some wierd errors.

At the Linux beginner level, What does these errors mean?  how do I fix them?  

---------begin snippet---------------

mkstemp mydirectory/g.temp.PJ4Stg failed: Input/output:w: error
mkstemp mydirectory/g.testMail.pl.sBxZMj failed: Input/output error
mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.1strun.txt.dn58uo failed: No such file or di
rectory
mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.configFilter.pl.AOqoax failed: No such file
or directory
mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.configFilter.pl~.PtlfaG failed: No such file
 or directory
 mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.delList.txt.KQ5SoN failed: No such file or d
 irectory
 mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.delList.txt.bak.XodGWU failed: No such file
 or directory
 mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.twpol.txt.ilxYZ2 failed: No such file or dir
 ectory
 mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.twpol.txt.bak.FA044c failed: No such file or
  directory
  mkstemp mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol/.twpol.txt.next.It9z6o failed: No such file o

  r directory
  rsync: recv_generator: mkdir "mydirectory/perl": Input/output error (

  2)
  stat mydirectory/perl : No such file or directory
  rsync: recv_generator: mkdir "mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol": Input/output error (2

  )
  stat mydirectory/gtw_auto_pol : No such file or directory
  wrote 35375664 bytes  read 1188 bytes  548478.33 bytes/sec
  total size is 8101151490  speedup is 229.00
  rsync error: partial transfer (code 23) at main.c(578)
  link_stat /var/log/secure* : No such file or directory
  building file list ... done
  rsync error: partial transfer (code 23) at main.c(578)

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Thanks ...  T