Another common copy-protection scheme was using (fully or partially) unmagnetized sectors. The unmagnetized data would then appear as random values when read by the FDC.
When the protected program is launched, it reads these weak sectors multiple times. Due to their unstable nature, these sectors will return different data on each read. If the program detects this changing data, it recognizes the disk as an original and continues to run. If not, the program can then crash, reset the computer, or do other protective measuresetc.
The trick is that the FDC cannot unmagnetize portions of a sector or leave portions of a sector unmagnetized to recreate this effect on another floppy disk.