From nookDevs

Part of the NookColor portal

A ClockworkMod Flashable version of this for CM7 and Honeycomb builds is availiable here. It may work on Froyo or Stock builds as well, but hasn't been tested.

The NookColor Key information is stored in /system/usr/keylayout you can modify this to make the volume buttons act as back and menu (or any other button). This method uses ADB but you could probably use root explorer.

1. adb pull /system/usr/keylayout/TWL4030_Keypad.kl
2. adb pull /system/usr/keylayout/omap_twl4030keypad.kl
3. edit 'TWL4030_Keypad.kl' and 'omap_twl4030keypad.kl' with a unix line ending aware text editor (Notepad++, gedit, vi)
4. replace 'VOLUME_DOWN' with 'BACK' and replace 'VOLUME_UP' with 'MENU' in each (or vice-versa)
5. adb shell
6. mount -o rw,remount -t ext2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 /system
7. exit
8. adb push TWL4030_Keypad.kl /system/usr/keylayout/TWL4030_Keypad.kl
9. adb push omap_twl4030keypad.kl /system/usr/keylayout/omap_twl4030keypad.kl
10. adb shell
11. cd /system/usr/keylayout
12. chmod 644 omap_twl4030keypad.kl
13. chmod 644 TWL4030_Keypad.kl
14. exit
15. adb reboot

Basic instructions taken from this thread. I just removed a few extraneous steps and recorded them here for posterity.

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Newbie .. Some changes (for my nookcolor) because the code before didn't work fine --------

Thanks to those who know how to make clean stuff to correct this

My version is:

1. adb pull /system/usr/keylayout/qwerty.kl
2. edit 'qwerty.kl' with a unix line ending aware text editor (Notepad++, gedit, vi)
3. replace 'VOLUME_DOWN' with 'BACK' and replace 'VOLUME_UP' with 'MENU' in each (or vice-versa)
4. adb shell
5. mount -o rw,remount -t ext2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 /system
6. exit
7. adb push qwerty.kl /system/usr/keylayout/qwerty.kl
8. adb shell
9. cd /system/usr/keylayout
10. chmod 644 qwerty.kl
11. exit
12. adb reboot

and btw, the file TWL4030_Keypad.kl does not exist on my noocolor but I have twl4030-keypad.kl The changes on that file didn't do anything