Trouble using one catalog on an external hard drive on two laptops

I have had LR set-up trouble-free on my old laptop. The catalog and all related images are stored on an external hard drive. I was running Windows XP.
I have recently bought a new laptop (running Windows 7) and last night installed LR onto it. I plugged in the external hard drive, opened it and imported new photos. Everything was fine.
Today, I've tried to open LR and I get an error message saying "Lightroom cannot open the catalog named LIGHTROOM MASTER because it is not writable and cannot be opened. This could be caused by incorrect permissions or because another Lightroom application is using the catalog. You may try to correct the problem or you may select a different catalog." I then get three options - Choose a different catalog, Try again or Exit.
If I choose a different catalog, and try re-choosing the same folder on the external hard drive, I get the same error. If I try again, I get the same error.
It does say the catalog can't be on a network volume or in read-only folders. I noticed the read-only box was ticked when I looked at the properties of the folder (which is wasn't previously) so I unticked this and updated the folder. Is Windows 7 doing something to my folders on the external hard drive which XP wasn't?
Has anyone else had a similar problem?
How do I get my catalog on my new laptop?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Mum of Max

When you first opened the catalog on new Win7 laptop, was it the same catalog that you used on old laptop?
You may indeed have permissions set for the catalog folder. They could belong to the user of the old laptop. Did you try checking the permissions on the new Win7 laptop?

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