Can't open Lightroom 5.3 catalog. Get ".. it is not writable and cannot be opened" message.

Hi everyone,
I'm having a problem opening a lightroom catalog. I get a message "Lightroom cannot use the catalog because it's not writable and can't be opened".
The catalog and several thousand RAW files are stored on an external drive.
Here are the steps which I believe caused the problem:
1. Worked with the catalog on my PC laptop. Disconnected the drive without closing Lightroom first (big mistake).
2. Plugged the external drive into desktop PC and did additional work. Closed Ligtroom (on desktop) and disconnected the drive.
3. Plugged the drive back into the laptop while original catalog was still open (see #1 above). Clicked on an image at which point Lightroom crashed and closed by itself.
The problem now is that the catalog no longer opens on either computer. Any attempt to open results in "Lightroom cannot use the catalog because it's not writable and can't be opened" message. There are no lock or journal files that can be deleted, just the lrcat file and tons of folders with preview data.
I'm hoping that it's not a lost cause and I can still recover the catalog. There are 2 days worth of work there.
Thank you for any help/advice in advance!

Ok. I found a solution. Since Ligthroom catalog is a SQLite database, you can use a database tool to fix it. Simply download SQLite from www.sqlite.org for your OS (Windows 7 in my case) and unzip to C:\SQLite for ease of use. Copy your corrupt catalog to C:\SQLite folder as well to keep things simple.
Go to command prompt Start>Run, type 'cmd' and click Enter. This will open the command prompt where you will need to execute the following commands:
1. cd sqlite
2. echo .dump | sqlite3 yourcatalogfilename.lrcat > tempcatalog.sql
3. sqlite3 -init tempcatalog.sql newcatalogfilename.lrcat
After executing line 3, you may or may not see error messages. No worries, it simply truncated faulty database records which is what cause the catalog to crash.
Now, copy the newcatalogfilename.lrcat back to your lightroom catalog folder and launch it. You should be able to get things back up and running to where you left of, or to the point where the original Lightroom catalog got corrupted in the first place.
Hope this helps. It took me a few hours to find a solution, but it saved me at least 2 days of work. The original credit goes to the author of the following article http://www.simplyness.com/more-photography-tips/recover-corrupted-unrepairable-lightroom-3 -catalog-with-sqlite.html. It seemed to have worked for Lightroom 3 and still worked for Lightroom 5.3 in my case.

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