Compatibility with old OS versions is only a limitation if you want to attach an external APFS drive directly to a Mac running an OS older than Sierra. It will still be able to read and write files on another 'up to date' Mac with an internal or external APFS drive when networked to that Mac.
You might not have the hard drive programmed the right way, you need to go in settings, find "disk utility" and click on the toshiba hard drive. then you go to "erase" and make sure nothing is in your hard drive beforehand and select "exFAT" or "mac os extended (journaled)" and press erase.
Good point! But I get a different error when I try to copy files to a NTFS volume. If that were the case he can get a NTFS mounter extension to allow his Mac to read & write to the NTFS volume. Its possible he had this and for some reason the extension is no longer working which could explain the odd error. I would still try to fix the disk first under Disk Utility as I had outlined above. It will also show what the drive was formatted with putting his mind at rest.
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